A White Christmas

We had a nice Christmas with my parents up in the northwoods of Wisconsin where we got a true white Christmas.  Despite the drive, I'm very glad that we were able to do Christmas with my parents this year.  We knew this would be a particularly difficult time for our family since it was our first Christmas without my brother and I'm glad we could be together (although we missed my sister and her family who were in Africa with Claude's family).  Many of you may have already seen this article posted on one of our Facebook pages, but in case you missed it, this article on being grateful and grieving at the same time does a nice job of giving people a window into some of what my parents (and many others who were touched by Matt) have been feeling this holiday season.

As always, the triplets brought a ton of joy to my parents and everyone else they encountered this Christmas.  I think both Michelle and I were surprised at how much they actually got into opening the gifts.  Each of them got into it at different times and as we expected a lot of times the wrapping paper and boxes were just as exciting as the gifts themselves, but they were pretty cute overall.  We did an early gift exchange with Michelle's family in Naperville before we left for Wisconsin so they got a little bit of practice before Christmas day. On Christmas morning Avery was adorable because she loved delivering gifts to people to open, which was fitting since she was wearing PJs that said "Santa's helper" on them!  They also liked helping us open our gifts. =)

"wow wow wow"

they liked taking things out of the bags

our little santa's helper delivering gifts

and helping open them!

Around 4pm on Christmas a bunch of our extended family came over to the house we were renting.  Isaiah, Avery, & Ellie got to meet some of their second cousins for the first time.  It was great to see everyone because it had been way too long since I'd seen many of them.  The babies did pretty well with all the new faces and enjoyed playing with and showing off for everyone.  

Ellie & her BFF for the night

Isaiah enjoyed his "bro time" & cracked up every time they crashed the cars

the kids table!