Christmas with the Fam near/in Effy

The weekend before Christmas we loaded up the family truckster and headed to Effingham to have Christmas. Here's a little side Landon story that happened during the drive:

Back a few months ago Landon, on some random Tuesday morning, decided he wanted to go to Papa Jeff and Grandma Conni's house. I explained we couldn't go that day because it was a school day and it was too far away. Fast forward to our Christmas trip....we get in the car and we're not even to Taylorville yet and Landon asks, "are we almost there?" We both said no of course, we had a long way to go still. Then he says, "but is today a school day, Dad?" Chad says, no, it's Saturday. To which Landon replies, "well then we should almost be there. It takes a long time to get to Papa Jeff and Grandma Conni's on a school day, but when it's not a school day it doesn't take very long." Hmmmm.....I guess there's a little logic behind that, but not the right kind.

I have ZERO pictures from our Christmas with Grandpa Forrest and Grandma Ruth :( because my camera battery went dead after taking one 20 second video of Grant taking a lid off a box and putting it back on, then taking it off again, and putting it back on. I will have to supplement with pictures from Mom's camera, but I don't have those right now while I'm working my blog marathon, so I'll add them in at a later date for posterity.

I do have a very sweet picture of Landon playing with his Nativity that Elmer brought him piece by piece straight from the North Pole. The last ten mornings before Christmas Landon opened a gift...and when he got to Christmas Eve, he had an entire Nativity set. He spent a lot of time playing with all of the people and animals, and mostly would do this.....line them all up to see Baby Jesus. So sweet.

When we wrapped up (or unwrapped....ha ha!) Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma we loaded the sleigh again and went to Grandma Linda's. When we got there, Landon swore he saw a man "dressed like Santa" in Grandma's backyard. We told him he must be seeing things, but then what do you know....Santa showed up at the back door! I have a very sweet video, but I can't get it to load. It's rather lengthy and just like I can't crop, I can't video edit it on this computer....soooo...yeah....no video on the blog. :(

Here's a big ol family picture from Grandma's house....

followed by the traditional "couch picture" of the cousins. We're missing a few here, so we'll call this the traditional "cousins in attendance" circa 2010.

This is the first ever couch picture...which I pilfered from Lindsey's blog....this one is from 1983. And yes, we were THAT cute. That's me at age four holding baby Jaime (and she was BRAND new...not even a month old yet....yikes they were brave letting me do that) and then Lindsey who was almost 7 months and Michael, who would've been nearly 3. Here's the first ever second generation cousin picture, with Landon almost four, Grant freshly one, and Baby Harper at two months I believe. And don't you worry, there was a hand barely out of that picture ready to catch little Harper. She was NOT happy to be posing for her first couch picture. And Lord knows how we got Grant to sit there long enough to get a picture. These kind of moments must be captured very quickly.

A lovely time was had by all....we played a new game....Likewise, I think it was called....where Aunt Lou and I learned of our shared disgust for Twizzlers and it was made official that I have been brainwashed by Chad when I wrote "soccer" for a popular sport while the entire rest of the table wrote down football. Grandma got a new Dyson which several people took turns trying out. Then things all went down hill when Grant managed to hit his eye on the corner of an end table and get Noah's ark stuck on his head all in a matter of an hour. We took this as a sign and headed for home. ;)

And here's a fact: school day or a Sunday....doesn't matter....but when I sleep the entire drive, it goes MUCH faster. :) Thanks for the nap, Chad! ;)