Holidays in a Nutshell

This Christmas Santa left me a camera. It's not quite as nice as the one that we lost, but it has a lot of fun features and setting that I'm still trying to learn. Long story short, I finally have some pics to post, so here's a quick snapshot of our Christmas, New Year's and Valentines celebrations.

Oakley was quite excited. He still tells us that Santa is coming back to our house on random nights.

Enjoying some of the books he got.

Shawn got a book where he is the superhere from Oakley...it's pretty cute ;-)

It was fun this year to be able to spend Christmas with my family. They spent the night at our house so they could see Oakley first thing in the morning.

My dad always gets this "I'm deep in thought" look when he knows we're taking his picture...I think it's cute ;-)

Playing with all the loot that's been opened

He still will spend hours racing his cars around that tiny track...best $5 ever spent!

 Now on to New Year's...we had my parents, my brother (who lives with us), my sister and her hubby, and my aunt and uncle (their son came after work) over for games. It was pretty low-key, and Oakley crashed at around 9pm, so we didn't even use the noisemakers at midnight, but it was still pretty fun. I also learned how to cook a turkey for the first time.

Ummm...yeah

Oakley hitching a ride with his Aunt Rissa to catch all the streamers.

 Short and sweet, now on to Valentine's Day. Well, a few days after Valentine's ;-) Shawn and I have been called as the Wolf Cub Scout leaders. The first pack meeting we attend: The Blue and Gold Banquet. When was it? On Valentine's Day. I really didn't expect as big of a turn out, but I guess everyone was up for a free meal. We both worked all day on V-Day, came home and went straight to the pack meeting to help set up and chop food, then had to clean up after so we didn't end up getting home until after 8...which is when we start our night time routine. So, we both understood that we weren't doing anything for Valentine's Day.
The next day, however, my friend posted on FB about how she had made a ton of chocolate dipped strawberries that anyone could come get. I immediately went over a bought some off her, she added 2 little bottles of sparkling cider, and I thought, 'well, we can have a nice V-Day meal tonight!" Well, about 10 minutes after I picked all that stuff up, Shawn called and said he was sick and needed me to pick him up from work. He had the flu...yuck. No Valentine's dinner for 3 more days...but we did finally celebrate!

Oakley was so excited about the whole "special dinner". He rolled up all the crescent rolls, helped break up veggies for the salad, helped me light the candles (which was his favorite part of the evening), and even "helped" grill the pork chops.

He decided he wanted strawberry milk instead of cider, and I thought it was only fitting for Valentine's Day.