Christmas with the Pepins

Last night we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family.  For the past several years we've done it before Christmas because my brother Ben and his wife Erin head to KC to visit her family on actual Christmas, and we are swamped with other family partays, so it just works out better for everyone that we do it early.

Last year Patrick was 7 months old, adorable, but immobile.  This year, Patrick is very much mobile, active, and DOES.NOT.STOP. from the second he walks into Grandma's house.  I swear that kid has batteries like the Energizer Bunny cause he just keeps going and going and going!  It was a lot of fun though to see him helping everyone rip open their presents and spend .2 seconds enjoying what he got before getting bored and moving onto another present or someone else's.

My mom and Aunt Kate whipped up a delicious meal--they got meat/pulled pork from Bogart's Smokehouse downtown--and made a bunch of tasty side dishes to go along with it.  It was so darn good.  Patrick devoured his (which was mind boggling since he ate no less than 20 pieces of appetizer cheese and crackers and bell peppers) as well.

Speaking of Patrick, he wore his adorable new sweater that his besties Lauren and Braxton got for him, and no less than 2 minutes after getting there he managed to get red peppers all over it (it did come out in the laundry by the way :)...but he still look oh-so-adorable in it.  Spoiler: the rest of this holiday season he probably will be wearing the exact same sweater...so my apologizes if he's in the same outfit for a'many pictures.



We did use this opportunity to take a few family pics (my mom's fave) as well...and I think they all turned out great!  I love that my brother Charlie and Patrick both got the grey sweater memo--so darn cute.







Like I said earlier, Patrick really loved opening presents--I mean, who doesn't?!  The thrill of tearing that paper is just so exciting, isn't it?!!  Anyways, my brother Ben put on a Santa costume and surprised Patrick when we were about to start opening gifts.  Patrick wasn't exactly thrilled to see this Santa (maybe the loud booming voice and "in your face" delivery he gave off!) but didn't cry and promptly sat on his lap to open his gifts.  It was adorable.  But Ben didn't last too long in the outfit cause it was steammmmy.



Patrick sure got some awesome gifts from his grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles!  His favorite, which he doesn't even know it's his favorite yet cause we haven't set it up (yet!) is this bad boy:

OHH EMM GEEE, right?!!  A police power wheels!  He's going to be in heaven! (And, OMG, think of all of the photo ops for me! ekkkk!!)  I cannot wait to get this bad boy set up and let Patrick cruise around (our basement) in it.  He's going to have to clock some hours inside before we let him roll in this guy outside (and wait for it to warm up too).  I cannot wait.


All in all it was a great night with great food and great company celebrating Christmas!  It was so much fun to get together with just our (right now!) little family.  I am really excited about actual Christmas day (even though Mike has to work) and watching Patrick open his presents from Santa under our tree here (before Mike leaves for work)...stay tuned for details on that later this week :)  Happy holidays and merry Christmas friends!

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