A Marathon Post – Swimming In A Sea of Estrogen

I can’t believe I haven’t posted all of this before now, but we’ve just been enjoying some family time and hanging out. I will apologize in advance for writing a book. It’s going to be a long one! It was a whirlwind week for us once the girls showed up, but we’ve had a great time. I’m posting all of the pictures small; just click on them to see them larger.

Christmas Eve, Aaron & I went to Aaron’s mom & step-dad’s house for dinner, a chinese gift exchange, and time with family. We got to spend some time with his step-sisters and their families, and we ate a wonderful meal!

Aaron & Pat thought they were going to “beat” the gift exchange and they each brought a gift that the other would want for hunting. At the end of the game, neither one of them ended up with anything that had to do with hunting (until Pat bargained with one of our nephews to trade, that is)! It was hilarious! The younger “boys” kept opening “spa” type gifts and tried their darndest to get rid of them to one of the ladies there.

Tom & Carol gave each family a picture frame with three rectangular picture places and the word “FAMILY’ below them. They are beautiful, ours is hung, but I need to get some pictures put into it. They gave each of the kids a marshmallow blow gun made from PVC pipe – they were an INSTANT hit with ALL the kids, even the ones over 30!

As I mentioned earlier this week, we were at Mick & Susan’s Christmas Day.

The three little girlies had to wait for me to take a trip to Heppner to pick up Emma before they got to open gifts on Wednesday. Then we had breakfast before we opened anything, which was pure torture (slinks again – the girls loved them, Lindsay!). Highlights of the day were the gifts from Santa, the camo shirts for the girls, and the marshmallow blow guns.

My favorite gift was the bags of individually colored M&Ms we got from my mom & dad. They were in LasVegas for the the National Bull Riding Finals, and got these at M&M World. If you click on the two close ups, you’ll see that Aaron & mine are “camo”! Cool! My parents said they had a great time making all these baggies up.

After chaos had settled down, we headed to Cove to spend some quality time with Nana & Papa. The girls were all so excited to see them and to see all their cousins! We ate, visited, played games, ate some more, went sledding, ate, and had a great time!

I think Aaron didn’t want to be outdone by such an “oldie” because right after my dad had his tumble on the sled, Aaron did this:

All the kiddos had a great time, and really wore themselves out walking back up the hill. There were some pretty brave ones who kept trying to hit a jump someone had built near the bottom of the hill. A couple times they managed to hit it and all you could see were bodies flying in all different directions! We took my parents’ dog, Luna, and I think she had more fun than the kids!

As is the norm at my mom & dad’s house, the birds were all over the feeders and the seed the whole time we were there. This time I *know* I have the correct names. From left to right are a woodpecker, house finches, flicker, and quail.