Christmas 2009 Part Three!

Once Little B arose from his nap, we headed over to my parents' house for our immediate family Christmas celebration. After my son got his late lunch in his belly, we had him open a few gifts and his stocking.

It's too bad this kiddo isn't loved.

He set to work taking apart the magnetic pyramid my dad had constructed, then walked to the kitchen to throw the pieces on the hardwood floor. Such fun!

My sister got him a pretty sweet pitch-perfect xylophone.

Which he had to get the hang of playing.

We then settled down for a Christmas eve Chinese dinner, ironically enough a tradition for both of our families. If you're in the Grand Rapids, MI area, Golden Wok's chicken with pea pods is truly scrumptious! I highly recommend it!

Then it was time to open more gifts. My dad got a tie from my sister and decided to wear it the rest of the night.

My son got a pretty sweet Melissa and Doug numbers puzzle that kept him occupied for part of the night!

Oh, I'm sorry, did I say my dad got one tie? He got two ties ... and wore them for the rest of the night.

Apparently for Little B, Christmas is all about reading books because he had people reading to him all throughout the evening.

He did take some time out of reading, however, to open a John Deere farm implement set! Now he can bring in the harvest with the best of them.

And my husband got to open more heavily-packaged gifts for Little B. Fun! Fun!

Finally, everyone else was hungry enough to bust out the cookies, and even my son got to partake of the holiday goodies thanks to Aunt Christine, designated cookie wrangler.

Spritz cookies (turned into slice-and-bakes because of spritzer difficulties), sour cream cutout cookies, almond tartlets, homemade toffee, and (my favorite) mincemeat cookies - which my sister refers to as "beef bars". Ooh, howdy!

Aunt Christine got Baylor a pretty sweet rubber block set that he was instantly itching to open!

Oh, I apologize ... did I say two ties? I meant THREE! My dad is a funny guy.

We had such a good time visiting and opening gifts with everyone. It was a little break from tradition to do it on Christmas eve, but it worked out well and we were so appreciative of my family's flexibility. Thanks again for a wonderful time, guys!