Holiday Pictures

Here's some pics from our holidays.

Dutch Christmas Party - on the first Saturday of December, John's siblings, spouses and the kids celebrate their Dutch heritage by celebrating Dutch Christmas.  We go to the Dutch Store by our house and meet Sinter Klaus and Zwarte Pete.  Then, we go over to Jen and Brandon's for a Dutch dinner, treats, games and then the kids leave their Dutch shoes out (filled with hay and carrots for the reindeer) and Sinter Klaus fills them with goodies.

G.G. and Kent (John's mom and step dad) took all of us up to the Hogle Zoo to see the Zoo Lights and have hot chocolate.  It was REALLY cold that night -- lots of wind -- but we had a lot of fun.

Christmas Party at GG and Kent's where we continued our tradition of gingerbread decorating (this year we did trains), had dinner and did our present exchange.  Chad (my BIL) loves this picture because it makes his bicep look so huge.  Em, this is for you to take and put on Chad's FB!

Mortimer Christmas Eve party - we have dinner, a really irreverent nativity although Sparky and Holly tried really hard to make it more normal than usual (see Katie as the camel), Santa Claus (my bro Dave) comes and this year, we had a hilarious White Elephant game.  Here's Jennie with the creepy CPR baby that Brad brought and Jimmy wearing some funky stretchy shirt that Dave and Shelley donated.  Jimmy convinced Katie to take it and now its a part of our dress-ups.

Christmas day was a blur.  Katie, for the first time ever, woke up early (we usually have to GET her up).  We had a nice Christmas morning.  Then, it was off for our "Four Christmases" (Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn have nothing on us).  We picked up my dad from CareSource and took him up to the house, spent a little time up there and exchanged presents.  Then, we rushed off to Silverado (an Alzheimer's Care Center) to visit with John's grandpa, step-grandma, dad and step-mom.  Next stop, was CareSource again to see Grandma Rees, John's grandma who is my dad's neighbor.  Finally, we went up to GG and Kent's for dinner and games.  Crazy day!

Hope you all had a GREAT Christmas!!!