Happy Holidays!

We've had busy Christmas weekend traveling all over Wisconsin to visit our families and as usual, it went way too fast! 

Our first stop was in Eau Claire and on Friday night we had Christmas dinner with Jeremy's parents, Jessica and Tony and both of his grandma's.  Maple finally figured out how to open presents this year and she had fun opening all of hers as well as trying to help others!

Maple had to eat the treats that were tied onto her present before she could start opening it! 

On Christmas Eve we went to Grandma Carey & Bob's house to celebrate with Jeremy's dad's side of the family.  The whole family was there this year too!

The Carey Family.

After Christmas Eve at Jeremy's grandma's, we packed ourselves up and headed down to Cambridge to be with my mom's side for Christmas Day.  This might have been the first Christmas Day that I remember being able to sleep in!  Normally my little brother Matthew is up at the crack of dawn, looking through every one's stockings and itching to wake everyone up!  After getting in late, it was nice to sleep in!

Christmas traditions at my mom's house consist of some sort of pajama that we get on Christmas Eve, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, spending the day in our PJ's, watching a Christmas Story all day, playing board games and grasshoppers!  This year our PJ's consisted of Badgers gear and we all had Badger's t-shirts to sport on Christmas Day! 

 What a plump Christmas tree!

Matthew was Santa's little helper handing out all the gifts.

Everyone in their Badger's gear.

 Santa brought Maple, Libby and Zoe these toys that then have treats stuffed inside.  Libby wouldn't put hers down and she managed to eat her treat and Zoe's!  Maple sure likes hers too!

Most people that know me know I'm a very competitive person and so is my little brother.  A few years ago we started hiding the Christmas Pickle in our tree.  On Christmas morning, the one to find the pickle on the tree gets a special gift and is to have a year of good fortune.  All of us wait upstairs while Mom and/or Eric hides the pickle.  This year I was messing around with Matt and trying to hold him back!

Perfect action shot of our fight for the pickle.  I won this year and found the pickle first even though I wasted time holding Matt back first!  I found it pretty quickly so we hid it again and Ryan found it the second time.  I almost had it, it was hidden under the angel at the top of the tree, but I'm kind of short so when I jumped up to try to grab it I almost knocked the tree over...whoops!  Looking forward to my year of good fortune :)

After opening our Christmas presents there was a slight emergency. Matthew was playing his own little version of Fruit Slice with his new paring knife and in addition to slicing his orange, he sliced open his middle finger and needed to get six stitches!

Disclaimer: Throwing fruit in the air and trying to slice it with a knife should not be attempted at home! Poor Matthew has to spend his Christmas break with an injured finger! At least he's smiling about it!

Maple turned three on the 28th so Jeremy felt the need to buy her some birthday presents. 

 What a spoiled little girl with all her treats!

We were planning on driving over to Merrill, WI this past weekend to celebrate Christmas with my dad but instead he decided to drive over and visit us!  It was nice staying at home this past weekend :)  We went out for lunch at the Sportsman Grill when my dad got to town and then we spent the afternoon watching movies and ordered pizza to bring in the New Year!  I sadly only stayed awake long enough to watch the ball drop at 11 pm.  This is the first year in a long time that we didn't go out on New Years and it was surprisingly nice to stay home and relax!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!!