Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This year we headed up to my parents house on Christmas Eve to start our Christmas festivities. We started by going to our friends house and having a Christmas Eve dinner. We only see them about once a year but it is always wonderful to catch up. Logan had a wonderful time playing with their little kids. He unfortuntely chocked on a cracker and spit up all over his cute Christmas Eve outfit. However, our friends quickly jumped and put Logan's outfit it in the wash so that it would be done by the time we left. In the meantime, Logan wore some of their little girls pants. Sparkly with hearts on the bum to keep his legs warm. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of this. It just made me laugh mostly because of how different boys and girls pants are cut. The girls jeans do the whole flare at the knee thing and it just looked so funny. Nevertheless, they kept him warm till his outfit was clean.

After dinner we headed to my parent's church Christmas Eve service. We have been going to this ever since I can remember and always brings in the Christmas spirit. I was worried that Logan might be restless but he ended up falling asleep in Ben's arms. I think all the singing put him to sleep.

We then came home and opened up two presents. One of them is from Ben and is an ornament--one for me and one for Logan to remember the year by. This year Logan got a stuffed dog since his first word was dog and I got an agility ornament to remind me of competing in my first agility competition this year. I love that Ben does this and it is so fun to decorate the tree each year and remember all these memories.

Then we also get a gift from the Christmas elves with our Christmas pjs. Here is Logan sporting his and some slippers on Christmas morning. We then spent the night at my parents and did Christmas morning at their house. It was so fun to watch Logan's reaction to things and how excited we got to give him things. My family definitely spoiled him. He got a music table and a Little People Noah's Ark from Santa.

He was so in love with his music table on Christmas morning. He would lay his whole body across it as if he were saying this is all mine. As you can see, we were all entertained by it as well.

Lets just say he danced the morning away. He also received this big bag of blocks from my sister's dogs (yes our pets give us gifts) and loves them. He plays with them daily at our house. He will go and hit the bag and scream which means open it up so I can play with them.

As a short summary for us, Ben got a wide format printer this year to assit him in his graphic design classes. I received some wonderful clothes, a new petunia pickle bottom diaper bag, and the beginning of the willow tree nativity sceen. We love them all and are so grateful for our generous family. We then went down to Ben's brothers house to celebrate with their family. This year, we did Christmas via web cam for much of Ben's family. Two of the families were out of state and Ben's mom was home since she had just had a chemo treatement. It was fun to get to see everyone and I think they enjoyed being able to be part of the Christmas. Ben's sister and her husband and little boy were able to come out this year for Christmas and it was fun to get to hang out with them. Our biggest news is that Logan took his first steps on Christmas day!

We were at the Ellis's and I was upstairs with my sister-in-law. Logan was standing by me and I let go of his hands and he stood by himself for a few minutes. Then my sister-in-law said, "wouldn't it be fun if he took his first steps on Christmas?" Not a minute after she said that Logan took about seven steps across the floor. I couldn't believe it. We then had to try to video tape him. This doesn't do the first one justice but neverthless shows his new skill. Since then he still isn't choosing to walk around the house but will do occassional walking here and there.

Then due to the snow on Christmas, we decided last minute to cancel the Cassler Family Christmas get together and move it to the day after Christmas. So after a long Christmas day we came back to our house, put Logan to bed at a decent hour, and put away our Christmas presents. It was weird to be home so early on Christmas but also nice as Ben and I were both exhausted.

The day after Christmas we ventured down to my Uncle's to have another dinner and party. It was wonderful to be with all of my mom's family and nice to feel like we had a little bit more time at this party since it wasn't on Christmas. Here is Logan sporting his cute outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Ellis.

On Saturday we then had an Ellis Family Party. We started by having a tubing party. I must admit I was nervous that Logan wouldn't hold up very long. However, I was very wrong. Logan loved it. He would get so excited at the top of the hill and when you were done he would say "Woah!" Here is some of the footage of his first tubing experience.

After tubing, we hung out, ate lots of food (which I didn't take pictures of, sorry bloggers) and played lots of games. It was such a nice and relaxing afternoon.

Lastly, here are some pictures on New Year's Eve. Logan was having fun riding around on his car before we went up to my parents house.

We went to go see Marley and Me (highly recommended for animal lovers) with my family. It is also my mom's birthday so after the movie we went and cooked her a dinner and opened her presents. We then brought in the New Year by playing with my brother-in-laws new Wii. We had so much fun playing Tennis and Guitar Hero. I think my sister was hooked. Ben also did suprisingly well at this game. He creamed all of us.

I don't know if Ben and I have really made any big resolutions this year. We just hope that we will be able to be better people in general. We are looking forward to Ben graduating this year and being done with school.

Logan has brought in the New Year by being sick. He has been throwing up since Friday. Poor guy. We have now gone almost 48 hours without throwing up but he has been on a strict pedialtye diet in hopes of giving his tummy a break. Here he is sipping it out of his straw cup this morning. We sure hope that we will get this sickness out of the way and be able to enjoy the rest of the year illness free!