Christmas 2011

 We had such a wonderful Christmas this year.  We got to celebrate in Texas with Derek's family, then in Arizona with my family.

The night before Christmas, Grandma Liau read from the bible the story of Christ's birth.

Then the boys got to open one present- new jammies!

Brett was thrilled!

 Grandma Liau worked so hard to make Christmas magical!  She did a great job.

 The kids put some food out for Santa's reindeer.

 And then some for Santa.  They were sure Santa wanted a banana this year.  I guess he is on a diet.

 Grandpa Liau enjoying the festivities.

 We look forward to Grandma Liau's delicious Christmas dinner every year.  We were so glad that Alex and Catherine and Madeline were able to join us.

Alex and Catherine getting ready to chow down.

 Jason is such a picky eater lately.  He won't even eat chicken without a battle. We were pretty surprised when he decided he loved duck and ate about half the bird.  I guess I just need to serve duck and sparkling cider every night for dinner.

We took the kids to the park in the afternoon.

Jason going down the slide.

My poor baby got so beat up on this trip.  He bonked his head at the Liau's house and got an enormous goose egg that bruised the right side of his head. I took him to the park to recover and.... he tripped and hit his left cheek on the side of the playground steps!  I felt so bad for my little bruised up bear.  I was afraid to take him out in public looking like he was in a UFC fight.

Jason was unconcerned with his brother's injuries.  He had a great time.

We were sad to leave the Liau's, but we just moved the party to Arizona.

 We had a second Christmas with my family.

 Alex is doing some awesome dance behind Jason.

Cute Madeline.

Look at all those presents!

 The boys got flying airplanes for Christmas so we took them to the park to try them out.

Cute Brett running around.

My sister looking awesome.  How come she gets to look adorable even when she is pregnant?

Getting ready to launch the plane.

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There it goes!

My dad got a plane for Christmas, too.  It was pretty difficult to put together.  Dad had to use all his super lawyer powers to decipher the directions.

"The what goes where?"

"The thingamabob attaches to the doohickey?"

We just left him there while we played with the planes.

Brett challenged everyone to a slide race.

In a dead heat with Jason.

Trying to beat Daddy.

These two are good buddies.

Papa took a break to fly planes with Brett.

So cute.

There it goes!

The wise man made an appearance this year.  Mimi introduced him.

Alex, Catherine and Madeline waiting for the wise man.

He was extra scary this year with a turban and a scarf.  Brett did not know where he came from and did not like the look of him.  He was terrified.

Not even gifts of knowledge (books) and beauty(music) were enough to convince the boys that he could be trusted!  We had such a great time visiting our families.  We missed Aaron, Kim, Mikey and new little Daniel, but we had a great time visiting family over Christmas.