Christmas Eve at the Lake

The four of us in front of the fireplace. I love this picture!

The girls: Emily, Rose, Lauren, Jackie and Ashly

The girls with grandmas: Vicki (Chadd's aunt) and Sharon (Chadd's mom)

The boys: Christopher, Nate, Nick, Kyle and Justin

Mommy and her sweet little boy!

The girls and their Lake Minnetonka shirts. Grandma gives them a new lake shirt every year for Christmas.

Chadd's uncle Greg put Christopher to sleep during gift opening, but he woke up when we layed him down. Too much commotion.

Christopher got a Lake Minnetonka shirt too!

Part of the gang. Lots going on and lots of fun! Opening presents!

Ashly enjoyed helping Christopher open his toys. This is one he got. He has already spent lots of time with this toy, it was a winner!

Emily was the youngest cousin until Christopher came along. She likes to play with him and likes to hold him.

This seemed to be Christopher's favorite present. He got super excited and started squealing and jabbering when Chadd started putting it together. It seemed like he figured out he got something new and it was going to be really fun! It was so precious to see him get excited. I had to go to the kitchen and get Grandma so she could see how excited he was about the present she bought him!

I love his face here. You can just see the excitement!

Checking it out!

Very excited!

Christopher made friends with Buddy the dog. It was pretty cute. He didn't really like having his whole face licked!

He pushed him away.

Ewwww...dog slobber in the eyes!

This is Christmas morning. Ashly and Christopher opened presents in front of the tree downstairs. Santa brought Ashly a digital camera.

He didn't really get the concept of opening the wrapping paper yet.

So...sister helped!

I was very disappointed this morning when the weather did not cooperate with us. We woke up this morning planning on heading to Langdon to my parents house. The roads were fine at first but the further we went the worse they got. By the time we got to Rogers, we were going 25mph. Then my sister called to tell me they closed the interstates in North Dakota. At that point, the whole travel thing was going down fast. So we decided to turn around and just go back home since we hadn't made any real progress. We weren't even out of the cities yet. I hope to go tomorrow morning. Cross your fingers. I've never had to miss a Christmas with my family so I hope that is not what we remember 2009 for. But if we do miss Christmas, what is more important is that this year everyone is safe and healthy! That in itself is worth a celebration!

Hope to see you soon Mom and Dad. We love you :)