A late Christmas with the Riek's

Grandma and Grandpa Riek came out for New Year's and a late Christmas celebration.

Ryan was quite excited with his new kitchen and seems to like to make pancakes and cupcakes. Sounds good to me!

Christmas with the Dutton's

We went to Grammy and Papa's for Christmas afternoon with the Dutton family.

Ryan is sporting his sweater that our friend Bonny made for him - it is absolutely gorgeous and we get compliments on it wherever we go

This has to be my absolute favorite Christmas decoration of Kathy's - as you can see Ryan loves it too. It is the coolest snowglobe - it is motion activated, so when you walk by, the snow starts swirling and a carol will play. So cool.

Kathy's sister, Tammy and her son, Aber

Tammy's husband, Tim

Sean's cousin Sarah, her husband, Matt, and their daughter, Josie.

Josie is just a couple months younger than Ryan and is sporting her new ladybug tutu!

Christmas Morning

What a fun morning - Ryan was so excited to come downstairs and see if Santa ate the cookies we left out for him. However, as he rounded the corner into the living room - he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the table that Santa brought for him. He absolutely loves this table and is happy to tell everyone around that Santa made him a "pable". Beware if you visit, for you will surely be dragged downstairs to see Ryan's cool pable from Santa

Santa was also quite nice to mommy and daddy - ha! We got a Wii and Guitar Hero - oh the fun

Christmas with the Lange's

We went to Mike and Harriet's house for a Lange Christmas celebration on the Sunday before Christmas. Here is Ryan sporting his reindeer ears from Santa

At first Ryan would try not to tear the paper, and would pick at the tape. We soon put an end to that - who's child is this anyway??

Marita and Carroll gave Ryan a really cool driving game - can you tell he likes it?

Gingerbread House

Ryan spent the entire Friday before Christmas with Grammy and Papa - and had a blast!

Grammy and Ryan made a gingerbread house, although from the pictures, I am not sure how much "helping" Ryan did.

It is my understanding that there were M&M's that were supposed to be on the house...

A Visit With Santa

Ryan got to go see Santa (again) but this time he got to sit on his lap!

While we were waiting Ryan kept asking where the train was....we finally realized Ryan must think Santa always comes on a train (due to our visit with Santa on the Polar Express). HA! This child doesn't miss anything, does he?

When Santa arrived, Ryan thought he looked pretty cool - however, the thought of sitting on his lap was a little intimidating. Luckily there was a family in front of us with FOUR boys (EEK) so I was able to use them as an example - "See how those boys are all sitting with Santa?"

To our amazement, Ryan not only sat on Santa's lap, but he also told Santa what he wanted: a train (surprise) and a trailer

Christmas Picture

We are very fortunate that we have a photo studio right here in DeSoto!

www.wheatphotography.com moved into town right around Ryan's first birthday and we have been going there ever since. Jenny Wheat is just a great person (and photographer)

Here is one of the pictures from Christmas - we ended up buying it so we could make our own Christmas cards

Making cookies with Daddy

Ryan helped Daddy make cookies for Santa

Snow!

Sean and I went out of town for the weekend for my company Christmas Party in Columbus, OH.

Grandma and Grandpa Riek came out to stay with Ryan and lucky for them it snowed!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Ryan was a big help with the Christmas Tree this year - he had a lot of fun putting the decorations on the tree.

Once the train was assembled, this was our view of Ryan for quite a while.

More Thanksgiving.

Ryan and Daddy playing soccer.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Linda

Saturday night after dinner all 17 of us packed up and headed to Bryson City to ride on the Polar Express. The train left that station at 8pm. The Great Smoky Mountain railroad was all decked out for the occasion. The train was headed to the North Pole. We had hot chocolate and chocolate covered marshmallow Santa's. Once we arrived at the North Pole Santa and one of his elves got on the train and gave a bell to all the kiddos. Then he came back through to autograph copies of the Polar Express. On the return trip they handed out song sheets and we all sang Christmas Carols.

The twelve days Christmas found all the kids in the aisle dancing. Here we are at "5 Golden rings".

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A great time was had by everyone. We made sure to get family pictures Sunday morning as everyone was departing.

This a panoramic view off the balcony.

The fall foliage was beautiful.