For actual Christmas day, we headed up to Portland to hang out with the
Mitchells and Parsons. Of course, we get right down to business and make some food as well.
Hmm. We always seem to do that first, don't we?
But when we make food that looks like this, can you blame us? Straight out of Barefoot
Contessa I tell you.
The kiddos are so exited to hang out with each other. They play hide and seek under the desk at Justin's house.
Ethan shows off how good he is at giving hugs. Sometimes a little too good.
Peek-a-boo.
We were spinning the kids around on the office chair, and they kept begging us to go faster and faster. From the look on Ethan's face, I think we got it fast enough.
We also did a good amount of dog piling.
And of course, it wouldn't be Christmas Eve without a nativity. P.S. You're never too old for a nativity. Justin is looking oh-so-wise, yes?
Because I'm pregnant, I get to be Mary (Even though I lack the other requirement, wink wink).
Timmy is a fine Shepherd, oh no, I think he's a
wise man, carrying that Frankincense.
Here's
Caesar Augustus barreling through.
Mary riding the donkey into Jerusalem.
And the baby is here! Obviously portrayed with all sorts of solemnity.
On Christmas Eve, we get to open one gift. Thankfully Shannon opened her
Snuggie. It might look like it was a joke gift, but Shannon had it on her list. Although she might have wanted the zebra-print one, I'm not sure.
What? Are these Santa's elves? Checking to make sure the train works before the kids wake up.
Doing what we always do.
Christmas morning, Ethan opened up a lot of car paraphernalia.
Mark opened this, with this face. Beautiful.
More cars here. Oh, and check out my phenomenal manicure. Dream. Come. True.
The Parsons family got a trampoline, and the boys went straight to work setting it up for the kids.
Ahem. For the kids Mark. For the kids.
Ah. The kids. The never wanted to come inside from this point forward.
That night we had English crackers. You know the tubes you break with a crown, a joke, and a toy?
And then we enjoyed more fantastic food. We don't even stop to smile for the camera.
I threw this one in to show that I finally have a belly bump, only took 5 months.
The following day we went crabbing.
This is at the beginning -- before they lost the feeling in their hands and feet because of the cold, and before they lost the crab pot.
We rented two separate boats. On our boat John & Justin did the crabbing, while Yuan & I took care of the young'uns.
Justin is showing off our catch...yeah right! I think we bought this one, but I'm sure he tasted jut as good.
I don't know who had the genius idea of bringing the hot chocolate for afterwards, but I could kiss them I tell you. We were freezing ba-jeezing.
The adventures of crabbing didn't end there though, we got to do the prep work too for dinner that night.
Can you guess what Jared's doing? He may or may not be giving us some "
Rexplanation" that we stopped listening too ages ago.
Straight out of the pot, and into our bellies.
While we were in Portland we got to wish Henry a happy birthday!
Shannon even brought hats for the kids. And you can thank me for not including the picture of Justin with the hat placed elsewhere.
Ethan got to attend his first Shark's game this month and L-O-V-E-D it. He got the cheer down and everything (where you put the hands together and bite like a shark). We can get him to eat a good dinner by asking him to take a shark bite.
This is one is just funny because Ethan came up to me asking for his hat, and he would not forget about it. I brought him every hat I could think of, but none of them was the right one! Finally he found his sun hat from last summer and he told me it was his fishing hat. I don't know where he came up with it, but not too shabby!
