Christmas Afternoon / Morning after in Kalamazoo

Here are the pics from Kalamazoo! Too many to caption them all, but our family and close friends know who everyone is!!!

Christmas Eve / Morning in Holland

Here are a bunch of pictures from Holland - I'm too lazy to caption all of them :)

Christmas in Germantown Hills

Here are a few pics from Sunday at our house before we left for Michigan. We exchanged our gifts so we would not have to haul them with us....




Justin trying on Daddy's new boots!



















Justin did pretty good with opening gifts - he got easily bored though. I was really disappointed with the sit 'n spin. It's really cheaply built and it does not even turn...it's not like the ones we had when we were kids!











Daddy and Justin watching football!














So cute :)

Small World!

So I am working my butt off today trying to catch up from being out and slacking off the week before Christmas... I am talking to one of my customers and I had a question on a job bidding tomorrow. He tells me that I have to call the project manager for the job Hans Noel. I was pretty sure there could not be 2 Hans Noels in the world and sure enough there are not. So I've been on the phone with Hans the Phi Kap 3 times today trying to get this project squared away! I love Tech :)

(Sorry - this will make no sense to some of you, but for my fellow Tech bloggers you will know who I'm talking about!)

I have lots of Christmas stuff to post and I will try and do it soon!!!!!

Christmas Memories!!!

Christmas this year is going to be really hard with mom and dad not in Michigan to share it with. I have cried so much over it and I know that they have new jobs and we can't do anything about it....that's the hard part. Rather than just crying and feeling sad, I decided to make a list of some (waaayyyy too many to list all of them!)of the memories that mom and dad have created for us in the past years.

I think that it says alot about how we were brought up that with time and miles between us that me, Mike and Ryan all still choose to go to Grandma & Grandpa's for Christmas Eve and KZoo for Christmas afternoon. As I get older I realize that Christmas does not have the same special meaning for everyone, we were just lucky that our parents chose to make it a special time of year for us. I only hope that Rob and I can create some of those special memories for Justin....

*The farthest I can remember back is when we went to Meijers on Christmas Eve and mom bought Alvin & the Chipmunks wrapping paper. Then on Christmas morning we woke up and our Santa presents were in the same paper! She told me that Santa has to make all of the toys and they don't have time to wrap them before he gets in the sleigh, so each parent has to leave out wrapping paper for him to wrap gifts while he eats his cookies we left for him. I believed her. :)

*One year dad made me a very special doll house. It was beautiful - it was even carpeted, decorations on the wall, a balcony off the bedrooms, etc. It was so perfect that of course I wanted it on my desk in my room where the hamster cage was. So we swapped and the hamster cage went on the fireplace hearth. When we went to bed, nobody closed the flue and it got pretty cold on the hearth. Poor hamster froze to death during the night....dad tried reviving him with hot water bottles, etc before we woke up. Mom suggested the microwave! It doesn't sound funny, but this is in a time where it's a good thing hamsters at Meijer were about $2 each because we were going through them like crazy!

*Church. Our church was always a circus on Christmas Eve with all of the people. We have sat in the cry room, stood in the back and probably the most embarrasing of all was sitting in the choir :) However, after church mom was driving and we all got the joy of looking at Christmas lights around town. All around town. One year I think we saw every light! It took two different 7-11 pit stops :)

*The Christmas we got Maggie. Mom and Dad had her in the basement and she was crying so they turned the TV up really loud down there. We had no idea we were getting a puppy! Ryan was really little and did not like her because she had the puppy nips and she kept following him around wherever he went.

We love you guys so much!!!!

Beep, beep out of my way!!!!

Justin forkin' around.....

....he was doing so good - until the very end!

The Hills 12/22/07

Justin trying on mommy's sweatshirt. Maybe it will be his someday!!!!














In this picture he's actually falling down. I was trying to get a picture of what I walked in on him doing and got there just in time to see him fall. That did not stop him from getting back up to try again!!!











Frosting Christmas cookies with Daddy!


Mmmmmm....much better to just eat the frosting!

The weather here has been too warm for Christmas time!! It's been really foggy too. Here is the picture on my way to work on Friday.

Dear Papa and Gramma....

....my mommy said that she promises she'll post the newest pictures and videos of me as soon as I am done playing in the bathtub and I go to sleep. I will try to go to sleep fast, but I need my splash time. Please sit tight and we promise there will be new stuff later tonight!

I miss you!!!

Love,

Justin

Splish, Splash I was taking a bath.....

Hanging out in the Hills....

Here are a few pics from tonight of us just hanging out! These new PJ's I bought him are size 4T!!! The smaller ones did not fit his thighs/legs. I can't believe he's in PJ's that big!!!



He was running at me so it ended up being a REALLY close up :)

Hamming it up for the camera...















Thanks for the candy cane bones Grandma Brooks!



We love them!


I know I can get this open!

PS. Thanks for hemming our new curtains Grandma Brooks! They are perfect!



We gave Justin the Christmas card from Gramma and Papa and he was ripping it, so we taped it to the fridge and he loves it. He can be anywhere in the house and we say "where's Gramma & Papa" and he runs to the fridge :) He was putting stickers on them yesterday!



Giving Gramma & Papa a hug....





.....and a kiss goodnight!

We love you and miss you lots!