nc christmas

I'm way behind on posting, but I'm finally getting around to filling you in on our holidays.

We spent our first Christmas with my family at my parents house.  My sister and her 7 kids were able to come up while we were visiting so we REALLY got to have Christmas.  They arrived on Friday and we were able to hold all 8 kids (9 if you count Patrick, which most times we do) off from ripping open presents until Sunday morning.  I was quite impressed, not so much with Gunnar because he didn't really know what was going on and didn't open presents anyway (except for a pack of batteries - SCORE!) but with his 2 and 4 year old cousins.  I know it couldn't have been easy for them to see presents and wait patiently for 2 whole days.

On our early Christmas Eve, Saturday, the bigger kids helped Patrick build a new fire pit.  Then that night we took a walk around the neighborhood enjoying the luminaries that everyone sets out while Patrick made a fire.  The bonfire was so big, and we all got to enjoy it.  We roasted marshmallows  made s'mores, and even sang some jingle bells.  Gunnar was so excited about his first bonfire, he fell asleep in front of it.  Thanks to Kel for the following photos:

It was a great beacon for Santa to find our house early, because the next morning we all awoke to too many presents.  Again, these are all Kelly's pictures:

Everyone was pretty much in agreement that the best part of this Christmas was that Patrick was with us and NOT deployed like last year.  After all that great family time, we were sad to say goodbye.  But we were off to SC to spend time with Patrick's family!