Merry Christmas!

Today has been such a wonderful Christmas Day! Ryan did not sleep much at all last night, making today quite the exhausting day, but he did relatively well considering the fact that he didn't sleep last night. He must have been excited for Santa Claus to come. His favorite toy, the baseball bat. It came in a little set, but he really likes the bat. I did not have high expectations of him today, since I knew it would be overwhelming and I'm glad that I didn't, because the toys I thought he would really like, he doesn't really play with yet. We went to my parents house this morning and had breakfast. They are so generous and I am so grateful that they take care of us the way they do. We had a great breakfast there...sausage souffle. Yum!! Ryan couldn't have that, but he loved the muffins.

I just thought this picture was hysterical. So I added it.

Eric with his power tools and Andrew with his leaf blower. What men! More fun pics of Mom & Ryan, Grandpa with his new coat (I love this picture), My gift to Mom & Dad (and Haley's) and then Nicole. She is just always a hoot!

Ryan Crawling

We also took this footage of Ryan this evening. He is now crawling...watch out. It's so cute to watch.

Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Time!!! We are getting ready for Christmas tomorrow. I am making some muffins for breakfast and I think Santa is ready to come! We spent some time this morning cleaning our place, so it is spotless for Santa Claus:)

We also went to my parents house today, and then spent some time at Erics parents this afternoon. But this afternoon, there was a freak snow storm that just slammed us. It took us an hour and a half to drive home from Bountiful. I wanted to cry, it was so scary. The roads were not plowed and they were so icy. I was so grateful to get home. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Ryan opened a present this evening. He got some cute little Christmas Pajamas. I love them! We got some fun photos of him.

Ryan with my Dad.

Christmas Parties

I love the holiday season. I have so much fun getting together with friends and family and celebrating. Last Friday night was my (Ali's) work party. We went to Lugano and had a very nice dinner and then enjoyed fun conversations with those I work with. We played a gift exchange game. The first gift I opened up was a Green Bay Packers Christmas stocking. I was thrilled when I got doubles with the dice and was able to steal a duffle bag full of balls. I was lucky enough to end up with the gift and Ryan just loves it. I open it up, lay all of the balls on the ground and just let Ryan go to town. I took a couple of them to church yesterday and all of the kids loved playing with them. Eric got a marble play device thing. Yeah, I don't know what it's called, you basically create a little obstacle course type thing for a marble and then drop it into the first hole and it eventually finds its way to the bottom. He did a great job setting it up. Nikki likes it too. She loved to put the marble in it and could have done it all day long. It did well until I tried to move it and it fell over, sorry Eric. You are going to have to set it up again one day. We also went to my aunt Joy's house yesterday for the Black family Christmas Party. I love that party. It is one of the only times I get to see my Mom's side of the family. Plus, we always play Bingo. I don't know why, but I love playing Bingo at this party. There are so many people that it was madness for a little bit, but I loved every minute of it.

Christmas Lights

Today was our first big snowstorm of the season. It started snowing early early this morning and continued on through the early afternoon. I was grateful that it is a Saturday and we were able to stay at home and watch it, instead of having to be out in it. Its much prettier from a home than in a car. Since it let up early enough we decided to take the train downtown and see the Christmas lights. Ryan was so good on the train. Especially the train ride home. It was so much fun to see him surrounded by Christmas lights all bundled up in his stroller and just stare at the lights. Of course he had his binki in, I swear he looks like Maggie Simpson, just sucking on the binki. We had a great time. The lights were especially pretty because of the fresh snow on all of them. For the Rytting family...it looks like the Pine tree off of the Christmas Joy record that dad used to play growing up except underneath it was covered in lights.