Christmas 2010

This year marked our very first Christmas without any kind of travel. In fact, Katie and Chad actually flew out here to be with us. It was awesome and so much less stressed.  With a house full of family, our mantel was full of stockings!

Daddy's, Mommy's & Luke's

I love our Christmas Eve tradition: we have BBQ ribs and all the fixins. It started back when my family lived in Memphis years ago. There was a storm one Christmas Eve that knocked out the power and so we went looking for a place to eat dinner. Memphis BBQ it was and it stuck. I don't recall the year that started, but it has been kept up at least 20 years. Of course the BBQ was hit and miss in CA, mostly Tony Roma's, etc., but we did our best!

Luke is not one to make it through an entire meal, so to keep him occupied while we finished licking our fingers, he got to open a present early. I picked the right one. He opened this electric toy drill from Grammie and was drilling things all night. I seriously thought we'd be replacing the batteries the next day.

 Christmas Eve and all ready!

This kitchen is awesome. If you have kept up with my blog posts, you know Luke loves to cook, whether real or pretend. I found this great kitchen that was not full of girly colors and knew he'd love it. The appliances have buttons that make noises as they "run" and it has under cabinet lighting. Super cool! Allen lovingly put this together, so excited to get to do so for our boy!

An assortment of homemade cookies left for Santa!

Christmas morning I made the mistake of showing him the kitchen first. It didn't matter that he had other presents to open. He was not interested in anything else after that. 

But then this firetruck captured his attention.

At about 9:30 we made out way over to Allen's parents' house where April, Brett and their boys met us.  It was great fun to be all together for the first Christmas with kids. Brett and April were missionaries in Africa and so had not been state-side for Christmas in a few years.  Nanna and Grandpa spoiled the boys and really fixed them up!

Apparently Luke liked Corban's guitar and wanted it for himself...yes, we are becoming more and more of a 2 year old...

Playing outside with Uncle Brett.  Isn't Luke just getting so big?!

Christmas #3 at Allen's Aunt and Uncle's house where the entire extended Gillespie family got together for Christmas dinner. Luke loved rides from Grandpa on this little, old, wooden tractor.

Allen comes from a very musical and talented family. Me, not so much. They enjoyed singing Christmas Carols after dinner. I say "they" because we had to leave right about then. If you've ever spent extended amounts of time chasing a toddler in someone else's home, you know it's exhausting. You are constantly afraid they are going to break something or cause some kind of disaster. Luke is Mr. Energy and Mr. Curiosity which = exhausting combination for Mom and Dad. 

 Luke sporting his new fire fighter rain boots. 

We were blessed to get to spend time with Granny Dot and Grand Dad who came to visit from Texas.

Granny Dot contributed to one of Luke's best presents. I asked Rick (Allen's dad) to make Luke a step stool for his bathroom since we regularly brush teeth, etc these days.  I wanted one just like the Pottery Barn Kids one, without the price. :)  He's an awesome woodworker, and made a perfect match to PBK. I had picked out the green paint, but to my surprise when we received it on Christmas, it was already personalized! Granny Dot is the family artist and she was in cahoots with Rick to paint this monkey on the stool to match his monkey-themed bathroom. How adorable is that?!

Luke is obsessed with our laptops and thinks they are mostly for him to watch all sorts of different things on YouTube. My sister, Katie, got him My Own Laptop, which is just for him. So here he is, chilling with his computer games.

Ok, this thing is awesome. My Dad sent this to Luke. It's called a Plasma Car. You wiggle the steering wheel back and forth to propel the car, but since our house is full of hardwood floors, you can really just push yourself off the walls, etc and whoosh around the house. It holds something crazy like 250 lbs, so we have all been taking our turns. :)

What an amazing Christmas 2010 was for us!

Excited for the New Year!