Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I find it hard to believe that the holidays have come and gone for another year!

Joey and Dani are lucky kids in that they got to open presents THREE times; once on Christmas Eve with the Marchand clan, Christmas morning when Santa came, and Christmas afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's house (my parents).

Here are some photos of Christmas Eve with Mike's family:

Danielle checking to see if Uncle Rick has all his teeth. He had just checked her mouth to see how many teeth she had!

Dani cuddling with Aunt Cheryl and Joey cuddling with Aunt Kathy

Joey and cousin Brett

Christmas morning, Mike and I woke our kids up (yes, you read that right!). Joey and Dani are NOT early risers, usually they sleep until 8 a.m. every morning. But, we had lots to do and places to go, so we got them up at the unheard of hour of 7 a.m. Mike and I were excited that Santa came and wanted to see the looks of joy and excitement on our kids' faces. Here they are sitting under the tree right after we got them out of bed.

Some of the presents that Santa brought were a monster truck, pinball game, fishing pole, Cars matching game for Joey; a baby doll, doll stroller, Bob the Builder tool belt for Dani.

Santa brought me a new waffle maker and Mike got a new coffee maker!

After opening gifts, we got in the car and headed to my Aunt Charlotte's house for the annual family Christmas gathering. My dad has a large family and it is always fun to go and see aunts, uncles, cousins, and meet all the new babies! We have a gift exchange there; a "rob your neighbor" kind of game where you never know what gift you will come home with. A lot of the gifts are homemade (okay, so this year, I contributed a non-crafted fiber optic Moose!) One of the most wanted gifts is Aunt Wanda's quilt. Every year, Aunt Wanda makes a quilt for the gift exchange. This year, I came home with it! For all of you that were at the exchange, and did not come home with it, here it is on my bed and it sure is warm and comfy!

After the family party, we went to my parents' house where the kids (and Mike and I) received more gifts!

Grandparents are wonderful! This is where Joey and Dani received the gifts that they were most wanting.

For Joey, an electric train and Dani got the "bike" (tricycle) that she has been requesting since before Thanksgiving!

Danielle had more fun than she could stand for the day, (no naps!) and ended up cuddling on the couch with Grandma.

Mike had the entire week off work -he goes back tomorrow :( and it was a fun time for all of us.

New Year's Eve was spent at home eating popcorn and ice cream! What a celebration! The kids were in bed by 8:30 and Mike made it til 11:00 and I made it til 11:30, so none of us were up to ring in the New Year. Now, to start working on those New Year's resolutions, which I will tell you all about another time...