Christmas 2007

Marie and her Chicago Cousins

Haute Couture Marie looking oh-so-fashionable

with Uncle Jeff

"What's that?"

"Does every girl get one of these?"

Eating lunch with Grandma Tina at Uncle Scott's

"I love my new bike!"
"What is Pooh doing in MY seat? He should be in the trunk. I will move him there...twenty or thirty times."
Santa's Little Helper at Uncle Scott's

Marie had a busy busy Christmas. We started with a little morning Christmas at our house Saturday morning where she got her bike and the Little People Castle. She also got a light up Pooh pen that she is in awe of. Then we packed up the car for the first road trip...down to Brighton and Nana Whall's. We had a quick Xmas Saturday night and then played games. Saturday night we played "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" Some of us were and some were not. Sunday we played "Hand and Foot" which is a fun card game involving 3 decks of cards. Some of us get a little too into it and other's (along with their sarcastic brother) like to make jokes and drag the game out. Fun was had by all! Marie had a blast playing with Uncle Rob. It is great to see the progression of that relationship. Last Christmas she barely tolerated him. Now she screams in glee when she sees him and has lots of little games they play together.

Monday we packed up and headed to Lombard, Illinois. Jim and Marie crashed in the car (see previous post). We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Day with my side of the family. Marie just loved being with her cousins and watching everything they did. She wasn't too into presents but loved the attention. A cute moment was after dinner on Xmas day...we were waiting for the kids to open another round of gifts and the two littlest ones were getting restless. Jim and I decided to take them outside to get them some fresh air and tire them out. We didn't have any toys or anything to play with so we took two gift bags - one for each - and collected leaves. Each leaf was a h-u-g-e event and met with squeals from the little ones. This one was red, this was a big leaf, this one had needles...each one was exciting and HAD to be put in the bag. When we finally got cold enough to go in we were presented with a slight problem. We were not going to let Marie take this bag of wet leaves into our host's house and she wasn't about to part with them. Her little two year old hands death-gripped the bag of leaves and the yelling made us wonder what she was fighting for? Jim finally had her put the bag in our car so we could get her back into the house.

The ride home was blissfully uneventful (see previous post). Marie made it almost all the way home before we had to bust out a DVD. She is a trooper.