this is how i feel today....

... or maybe it's more like this.

Husband, why must you wake up so early? This new found zest for mornings is not good. not good at all.

New Year's Eve - It's 2010!

Home for the Holidays

One of the best things about the holidays is getting to see friends who are home from out of town.

Lauren had some of our old high school friends one night after Christmas. She lives in LA, but was home visiting her parents. She missed the reunion so it was fun to see her.

Jason was home too. We miss him so much now that he's all the way across the country in New York. We "rescued" him from Puyallup one night and got to visit for a bit ... not nearly as long as we would have liked, but we did get a good "Jason fix"

And of course, my cousin Lori! Ah, how I wish she still lived here - we always have so much fun together and this year was no exception.

Christmas Evening at the Labriolas

My youngest cousin - Gabrielle - I love her!

She adores animals - Dr. Gabrielle at your service!

time for presents....

Watching her open gifts is always the funnest part!

Interesting use for this one :)

Craig and Stephen

Christmas Day

I didn't really photograph Christmas morning all that well this year :(

Despite my focus on presents in these pics, we had a wonderful time with our families visiting and just enjoying being together. We were over at my parents' early - around 9:30 - ready to start the day. Unfortunately, we didn't have any snow this year, but it was a foggy and freezing morning. On the way over it looked like a white Christmas because everything was white and frozen - it was so pretty.

We started out at my parents house where we scored big with a Wii! We've been playing it a bunch already and love it. It's a really fun game because it's so social ... not like other video games!

Dad got a Wii too!

After spending the morning with my parents, we headed over to Stephen's

Kaitlin got us snuggies - Ha! I love it.

Here is Stephen opening the gift that Hailey and Riley decorated - love it!

My favorite Christmas present was definitely my new camera!

Stephen got me a Canon EOS 7D and I am IN LOVE with it

Christmas Eve 2009

We spent Christmas Eve in two places this year. First we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house a little early for dinner and presents. This was the first year all the cousins were in town on Christmas Eve so it was fun to spend some time with everyone. Wish we could've stayed longer. I really think we need to add an extra day to Christmas!

Love these girls!

Ryan was here for the first time in quite a few years. Always fun to see him.

After spending some time at the Overbos we headed over to Stephen's parents for some more dinner and presents. Here is Stephen with all the boy cousins - doesn't he look like a little shrimp! ;)

dinner

After dinner we had a little dance party. Uncle Steve put on some of his favorite tunes from the Beyonce and Shania Twain CDs - ha! We had all the girls dancing ... Kaitlin, Stephanie, Me, Debbie, Sandy, and Kathleen. Steve even joined in a little but I think the rest of the guys thought we were crazy. We sure had fun!

After we had cooled down from all that dancing, Luke read the Christmas story from the bible and then we opened presents

Kathleen got all the families commemorative snow globes for the 2010 Olympics in Whistler

It was a very merry Christmas Eve