Christmas '08

We had a great Christmas this year. I was a little slow to get into the spirit, but I came around in time to enjoy the time with family. I'm going to intersperse the narrative with the pictures this time to better describe the activities...
We spent Christmas Eve at our house with all the Wiemanns (and Zingales now too). Emma's cousins got her to wear the antlers for just long enough for me to get a picture.
Emma surveys the carnage of wrapping paper after the majority of the gifts had been opened. Believe it or not, the whole side of the room that Jill is sitting on was full of gifts.
This was Emma's reaction to almost every gift that she opened. Needless to say, she made out like a bandit.
Mark settles down to play some Guitar Hero after Emma went down for bed. He truly believes that he is a rock star.
On Christmas day we traveled over to my parent's house. Emma had another pile of gifts. The Christmas tree light spinner will keep her occupied for a long time.
My mom bought my dad a new laptop with much trepidation. I think he liked it...
Emma gets her first spin of TMX Elmo (or is it Elmo TMX?) Did I mention she made out like a bandit?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I'm enjoying my time off work and spending time with family for the rest of the weekend.

Santa

I have been harassed for weeks by some of the women at work and others that Emma had still not gotten her picture taken with Santa. Apparently the sin is only compounded by the fact that she has a photographer for a daddy. Not being one to allow peer pressure to dictate my life, I was fine with another year going by without a Santa picture. My main concern was Emma's fear of almost any unknown man lately, which I figured would certainly include the Jolly Man. My secondary concern was for my wallet and the fact that I was going to have to pay 20 bucks for a crappy picture of my kid screaming. But alas, I found a solution...

Bass Pro Shops was offering a free picture with Santa, so since I had the day off I figured it was worth a shot. I talked Santa up to Emma all morning and then called in the reinforcements in the form of the Natzke kids. It was a handful running around that huge place with four kids, but it was fun. In the end, Emma was fairly ambivalent about sitting on Santa's lap, but at least we have a picture...

Wii

We went to a Christmas party last Saturday where they were having a Wii Tennis tournament. Emma is in love with the Wii since the girls across the street have one and she sees them play with it all the time. Here she is holding on to some of the extra controllers with a look of glee thinking that she was playing the game with everyone else.

Natzke Xmas Pics

Here are a couple of pics I took of the Natzkes yesterday evening. It was a quick 20 minute run and gun shoot, but we had a lot of fun. What a good looking family.

Trike

Emma has had this trike for quite a while, but it's really just been a seat with some wheels on it for her. Her legs were long enough to reach the pedals, but if the front wheel turned she couldn't reach. I think her legs are finally long enough and more importantly she now has the coordination to start pedaling. It's still slow going, but fun to watch. I'm sure she'll be a pro by the time spring rolls around.

Family Pic-Take 2

Since Jill decided that she hated the way she looked in our other family pictures, she made me set up in the back yard for a re-shoot. I think I still like the first one better, but she's sold on this one. Any thoughts???

Family Pic

This afternoon we did a bit of a photo trade-off with the Weavers. Carlos took our family pic and I took theirs. Here's one of my favorites from the shoot. Jill is not in love with any of them as she says that they all make her look fat. Last time I checked, she's pregnant not fat. And can you tell that Emma was totally into having her picture taken???