Christmas Day & Christmas Break Part 2

 Okay! Technically these first two pics are of Christmas Eve night, but they lead into Christmas Day so I thought it would be ok to include them on this post. Every year, we come home on Christmas Eve to fulfill 3 more Christmas traditions: 1. The kids set out Santa's milk & cookies, 9 carrots (1 per reindeer) and leave Thank You notes for Santa. 2. Randy reads "The Night Before Christmas" to everyone in the family. 3. We check where Santa is on NORAD to make sure we have enough time to jump into bed and start dreaming of sugarplums.



Santa brought lots of goodies we are sure to enjoy all year long.

  We get to spend Christmas Day with the Ossege side of the family. All day we nibble on delicious appetizers (nothing better than country ham...YUM!), spend like 4 hours watching everyone opening gifts, and just have fun hanging out with family. Only downside was my car wouldn't start when we went to go home; I now own a new alternator. Special thanks to all the uncles who helped us get home!


Grandpa & Grandma Ossege and 13 out 15 grandkids.



Helping my MIL Beverly make mashed potatoes for Christmas Dinner.



Austin had the honor of blowing out Jesus' birthday candle!

The day after Christmas only has 2 rules: 1. Must stay in PJ's all day 2. Can get out every single toy and play with it and not have to clean up till the next day...definitely a GREAT day! We have had a blast enjoying our Christmas Break. We have been having lots of lazy mornings, days around the house playing board games, cars, building with Austin's new workbench and Wii/DSi. We took the kids to Bellewood Lanes and bowled 2 games. Bowling is sooo much with your kids!!!

We went to the Museum Center today and discovered something new...Tower A (and it's FREE). If you take the North Elevator to the 3rd floor and walk up 2 flights of stairs, you can stand right in the middle of the old main control room for the railroad tracks that run behind the museum center. A neat room that gives you an 180 degree view out windows of the whole train yard and tracks. The kids were so excited to see a train come down the track into the station. We also visited the Holiday train display and Natural History Museum.