Ellerman Christmas, 09: Part 3

WARNING: This is a long post. Go get yourself a NackNack and meet me back here. Then while you read, I will be preparing for Big House Cleaning & Getting Rid of Stuff Day ’09, which is tomorrow.

And just like that, it was Christmas Morning. I wish I could say we all sat and excitedly opened gifts, but the reality is just not that simple, or that pretty. We opened a few, and enjoyed those a lot.

Above is Grady opening one of the airplanes Aunt Linda and Uncle Fred gave him and his bro. These airplanes were big hits! Cole could not have opened another gift and would have been happy. A few gifts in we started a downward spiral, and the rest of the time was spent opening a gift, soothing a baby, stepping outside to cool off, and repeat. 

We did get and give some great gifts, and hopefully next year the boys will be old enough to enjoy the spirit of giving to loved ones that makes Christmas so special. As you can tell from the picture below, this year Grady mostly gave dirty looks.

 Grammy doesn’t know this, but I damn near kept this purse for myself. It’s cute! Better not bring it here...I'd hate for it to "get lost" at our house.

Anyways, its not all about gifts, it’s about time with loved ones. Grammy took us on a walk to the Pier.

We ran across bridges.

 

Stopped to learn about “pants”. Notice that Grady has again convinced someone to carry him.

 And wandered out onto the pier.

 

And back towards the house we went, with Grady leading the way. Enough of this walk, he says.

 

Dear friends of Dean & Gail are now stationed in Pensacola, and they graciously [foolishly?] opened their home to us on Christmas for Christmas dinner. After naps we packed up and started the Ellerman caravan over to Pensacola.

Once we were loaded in the car, we explained to the boys that we were going  to the Naval Air Station, and Grady promptly put on his Top Gun glasses. Think he’d be a better Goose, or Maverick?

A quick drive filled with landmarks [yook! shish! yights! wahwah] later we got to our destination.

I didn’t get any outside pictures, but the house is a gorgeous old home. I’d tell you more about it, but the Kilkennys are great hosts and gave me wine soon after arriving, so I don’t remember much in the way of house details. To sum up: it’s old, it’s big, and has ghosts. That’s pretty much all I remember. If you want more details, go visit, but don’t drink wine until the tour is over.

Here we are, getting the memorable tour from Marianne.

 Grady decides he wants to be carried by Momma, so Keith becomes the photographer.

Admiring the view from the 2^nd story screened-in wraparound porches. Is it weird that it always shocks me to see how big my hair looks from behind?

 Now inside for some visitin’, as we’d say in my family.

Sean and Cole checked out one of the many trees.

Evan fed his momma.

The ladies exchanged gifts.

 

Ken and Sean chatted.

 

Evan and Grady checked out the dip.

 

Grady really liked the dip. SIDENOTE: On our way to Florida we stopped at Burger King for lunch. I would try to defend our choice by pretending we don’t let them eat our fries to keep it healthier, but let’s be honest, we’re lazy sometimes. At Burger King Grady dipped his fries in ketchup! I could not be prouder. Not sure why this particular achievement made me happy, but it did. And here, at Marianne’s spinach dip he dipped, repeatedly, his cracker and licked the dip off. Sanitary? No. Cute? Yes. And I wasn’t being a completely bad parent, I warned anyone coming to eat the dip that Grady had been double dipping. That’s fair, right? Grady joined me in warning people.

Cole is hanging out on the couch with the other big boys. 

 He adored Pat.

 And liked when Sean stopped talking to Ken and played Peekaboo with him.

 

Meanwhile Evan wondered off.

And Cole and Grady decided to leave handprints on any and every glass surface.

No gathering is complete without lots of group photos. The Ellermans.

 The Kilkenny’s.

 The Elders.

 The -Relatively-Youngsters.

Grady likes, no wait, LOVES opening and closing doors. When you play with doors, you’re bound to get a finger caught, and I am so grateful someone else was there to comfort Grady. Have I mentioned how heavy he is?

 Keith and I love our new camera, but our picture taking does take backseat to one thing: eating. And it was dinner time. Because we were completely engrossed in dinner, I don’t have any pictures of it, but I do have some fun after picture activities. Like…the menfolk teaching our kids to play with fire.

 Nice, Pat.

 And Grampie.

 The boys were trying to blow the candles out. Our two aren’t very good at it yet [mental note to practice before their 2^nd birthday], but Evan was an excellent candle blower. I was so amazed by his skills/wondering why he’s so used to fire [what do the Tennants do over in Madison?] that I forgot to take a picture.

 

While Grampie had Grady mesmerized, Joe made me a very stout Irish Coffee. The rest of this blog is a collection of warm fuzzy memories because that Irishman can make a good drink! His name is Kilkenny, after all.

Grady figured out that Grampie had cheesecake.

 Hmmmm…and Momma has cheesecake!

 Hey! There’s Dada.

One final gathering in the living room after dinner, where we did all sorts of things, like...

Teaching Joe how to play.

 Checking out Grammy’s picture taking skills.

 Chatting about football.

 Surveying the scene.

A little wrestling.

 Relaxing.

Grady and I discussed the history of the house, and he wasn’t pleased with my rendition on Marianne’s tour, so he took to reading about Quarters A all by himself.

And just like that, the night was over.

A Merry Christmas, indeed.