Saturday, December 31, 2011

Part Two, Christmas in Xenia

After a pretty fabulous Christmas at home, we packed up the car and headed to Xenia for Christmas Part Two.  We arrived late afternoon on Christmas Eve to a very excited LylaBird, Sweet Jack, Tia, Tio, Grandma & DD.  What followed was several days of holiday cheer.

Here are some of our favorite photos from Christmas in Xenia.

Who knew Grandma & DD were such personal friends with Santa, who very graciously swung by the house on his way back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve? The girls were thrilled!


And this one cracks me up. Josie is not so sure about Santa touching her and Jack gets a closer look.

Grandma gets the annual matching jammies (dating back to a Johnson sister tradition).
 Ly & J cuddle for a movie.

Santa has been here!

Josie dives right in!

And spots her "Mrs. Claus" dress that she had been dreaming about since Thanksgiving.

Bea eats her gifts with enthusiasm.

And we try to get both girls in the same picture and kinda succeed...kinda.


Lyla gets her doctor's kit.

 Josie adds to her nail polish collection.

My favorite! Josie asked to sign this package for Grandma & DD and I didn't help her with any of the words. I hope they liked their recorded picture frame from "Josie, Dad, Butrist, Venis and Mom". The whole "Bustrist" for Beatrice cracks me up. B - uh - trist: love it.

A girl & her golden tea set

Josie gets super pumped about more books in her favorite series!

Jack gets his train.

And we all cheered when Lyla yelled out "my roller coaster" when she opened her scooter. (Whew!)

Next year little ones, next year...

Josie tries out the first of many new dress-ups.

I captured the Jack look! Hilarious!

Josie looks 18!

More dress-ups, more books!

A trip to Chicago in our new future

Grandma, who will kill me for posting these, gets a big SURPRISE for Christmas. Bengals/Ravens tickets. She was so shocked and so happy. Clearly.  (Good job DD!)



A little holiday hot-tubbin.


Sweet Josie helps Grandma set the Christmas table. (Love these!)

 ...(Senior portrait Carri approves).

Bea crawls around and explores.

Mrs. Claus test drives a remote control car.

A not-posed photo of Lou and his baby girl
 And a posed one
 Me & Baby Bea!

Annual Christmas photo shoot (exposing some Irish roots, am I right?)





Andy why did we do this right before Bea's nap?!









Christmas dinner at the kids' table!

And then there were several more days of relaxed play, cookies and cousins (but not many photos).

Couldn't resist a photo of all the music-playing, light-up friends that kept the party going!


These girls!!


I love that the kids will have memories of "Christmas at Grandma & DD's house" to always think back on with a smile.

2 comments:

Brent said...

These are so sweet. What fun memories.

Melissa said...

Aren't cousins the best!! I love all the matching outfits. Kel and I dress our kids in matching jammies all the time too. That "un-posed" picture of Lou and Bea is beyond precious and then the posed one is equally as cute!