The rest of Christmas...

Here are the final Christmas pics (late of COURSE)!


Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve we went to Butch and Karen's to see all of that family (minus Lance's crew who we saw a few days later). Lorelei and Sagen LOVED playing with Wyatt. I have NO pictures of this cause as soon as I would go in the room with a camera they would all hide or scatter!
Sagen Did sit still for a little snack.
Lorelei did too. I think they enjoyed their floor picnic with the Santa mat.

Then we headed back to Gram's and put out our cookies for Santa.


Christmas Day

The kids got a LOT of presents (not ALL of the ones pictured are theirs). They could barely stand to pose for this picture before opening their stuff!

Lorelei's big present from Santa was a dollhouse! She LOVED it! Although she did LOVE feeding her dollhouse people to Sagen's new dino!
Sagen got a robot truck from Santa. It is voice activated and very cool. He also got a voice activated dinosaur from Grandma and Grandpa. It is also voice activated so we had fun making them talk to each.


It was a loooonnnggg day for Sagen!!

The morning after
We hit the "slopes" in Gram's back yard for a little sledding. Both kids loved it this year. They were able to do it by themselves after we made some paths. We just had to be at the bottom to stop them!




The day after that we had a BIG family meal (see the pics below) and Lorelei enjoyed a turkey leg.

Chritmas a time for friends....

This Christmas we were able to see some of our Iowa friends. Some we had never met and ohers I have know since they were born.

Sammy, Sophie and Ruby were one of our first stops. We started babysitting for the family when Sammy was 18 months olds and have babysat Sophie since she was born. Ruby is about a year younger then Lorelei. It was so nice to see them. Sammy and Sophie were my first babies and I can't believe how big they have gotten!
Nest we stop to see Caitlyn. She is now a senior in High School and doing very well!

Then we had lunch with Kameron, D, and their little boy Michael. He was so cute! It was the first time we meet him since he is only 9 months old. He is such a sweetie!

Polar Express

Right before our drive to Iowa we went on the Polar Express. It picked us up in Williams, AZ and drove us to the North Pole (a spot just outside the Grand Canyon). We got hot cocoa and cookies, listened to the Polar Express story, saw Santa and received a bell and then sang songs. It was A GREAT time!

Waiting to got on the train!


Sagen on the train reading the song book.


Lorelei enjoying her Hot Cocoa.


Getting a bell from Santa!

Ready for our photo shoot

This Christmas we went to Iowa. I PROMISE a lot of pictures of our adventures are coming. However, I am going to start with a post about my favorite part of the trip. A few days after Christmas ALL of my moms brothers and sister and all the grands and greats (minus my dad and Em's family) got together. We had a HUGE photo session and I REALLY will cherish these photos. I think we get together and do this about every 10 years so it really is a rare treat. Here are some of the best photo. All of the photos where taken by Wendy. My beautiful cousin :)


LORELEI'S!!!!
This first one is my favorite. It is of all the Lorelei's. My Uncle Butch and Aunt Karen started a tradition in my family when they named their daughter Wendolyn Lorelei (far left). My parents like the name so when I was born they named my Jessica Lorelei (I hope since you are reading my blog that you know I am the second from the right). Following the tradition my Uncle Bunny and his wife Marilyn named their first daughter Jennifer Lorelei (far right). My cousin Lance and his wife Cherise kept the tradition going in the second generation and name their daughter Rachel Lorelei (2nd from the left). I tweaked the traditon a little and named my baby girl Lorelei Alexis (middle). I love that we have a picture of all of use together.


Grandkids families

My family
Brian, Jessica, Sagen, and Lorelei

Wendy's family
Wyatt, Augie, Zach and Wendy.

Lance's family
Ben, Cherise, Lance and Racheal

Kids Families

Lisa's Family

Seth, Lisa, and Erica (Seth's wife)

Bunny's family
Sasha, Jenny, Ron (Jenny's boyfriend), Colin, Bunny, Marilyn, Jojo, and Mikeal (I prob spelled his name wrong)


Judy's family
Judy, Sagen, Gram, Jessica, Lorelei, and Brian (my husband)


Butch's Family
Cherise, (Lance's wife)m Lance, Ben, Rachael, Wyatt, Wendy, Butch, Karen, Zach (Wendy's family) and Augie.

Gram with her offsping

Kids
Bunny, Gram, Butch, Judy, and Lisa


Grandkids (please note while you are looking at this photo that Gram has her hand on the shoulder of her favorite grandkid ;P )
Jenny, Jessica, Seth, Lance, Gram, Wendy, Sasha, and Colin

Great Grandkids
Augie, Wyatt, Rachel, Gram, Sagen, Lorelei, and Ben

The WHOLE gang!!!
not listing all the names!

We missed Em and her family (who were at home in Mass) and my dad (who was home play Noah to and ark full of dogs), but it was so nice to have ALMOST everyone there!

Hair Cut!

I finally decided to get Sagen's hair cut. I was getting tired of it getting all knotted and getting stuck in his collar. It also would get very fluffy when I brushed it. So I bit the bullet and had my mom cut it. Here is the before and after.

Before

After

I am very happy with it. He looks like such a big boy!

Cause we NEED a little Christmas!!!

We are VERY excited about Christmas this year. We are doing a lot of special things so we cannot wait. We are going on the Polar Express then we are heading to Iowa to see EVERYONE!! We have not been with that side of the family for Christmas for 7 years. In that time 5 babies have been born. Four of those "babies" who range from 1-5 years old (we will miss Kadin) along with Rachel (who WAS around the last time we were all together) will be there and that will make Christmas extra special this year. I am picturing it being just like when we were all little. It was LOUD, CHAOTIC and WONDERFUL!!! I cannot wait!
All these things to look forward to have gotten us into the Christmas spirit a little early. We started listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies right after Halloween. This weekend we put up our tree. Sagen was really amazed by the tree. He knows what a Christmas tree is, but I don't think he remembers us having one. He kept saying "Wow! What's it's name?" We have named it Sagen.
Here are some pictures of the decorating. More pics of the finished product with us in front of it will follow.

Sagen using the ladder to hang an ornament. The Ladder was a bigger hit with both of them then the tree!

Lorelei showing off the ballerina ornament that Ms. Toni gave her. She can even tell you that the ballerina is doing a Passe.

Hanging the ballerina on the tree.

More decorating!

Lorelei was REALLY into this year. Sagen liked the tree, but would rather climb the ladder then hang ornaments.

HALLOWEEN!!!!!

We had a great Halloween. Both kids really "got it" this year and have been excited ALL MONTH. We spent the afternoon carving our pumpkins and then our friends came over to go trick or treating. We went all over the neighborhood and the kids got a lot of candy. They were really talkative with the people giving out the candy and answered questions about their costumes. Sagen told everybody that he was a dragon whether they ask or not! Most importantly they remembered to say THANK-YOU at every house. Sagen was funny cause he would say, "thank-you" then he would turn to me and say, "Mama, I said Thank-you to that guy!"

Getting ready to carve the pumpkins.

Getting the "pulp" (a term Lorelei learned at school) out.
At this point Sagen was not interested.

Sagen realized that we were making a mess and decided he wanted to help.
He kept getting seeds stuck to his foot so he was mad.

Very Proud of their pumpkins.

Our children are GOOFBALLS. I THINK they
get that from their dad!

Cheese!!!

Eating "sour kids" with the pumpkins.

Pumpkins on display! Lorelei drew the eyes on all of
these pumpkins.

Side view of our Dragon!

Cutest dragon EVER!

Our princess riding her unicorn.

Have you ever seen a cuter princess?

Connor as a lion.

Lets go trick or treating!!!!