Christmas on the Farm

Yah Christmas!!! Today we celebrated Christmas over in Sparta with my dad’s side of the family and my mother’s sister Mary, Carlos, Jennifer and Andrew. It was a blast. I realized that it has been over 12 years since the last time the Soto/ Steinhausen group has been here on the farm. I have some pics that I will scan onto the blog of the last time they were here… they are awesome. We started off with the traditional run to WalMart (Timmy, Carlos and I) and then ate dinner (lunch) when we got back… and it was good! There was ham, potatoes, sweet potatoes, Krissy made beer cheese soup, veggies (for those health nuts) black olives and more deserts than I could even begin to list. The babies (Brock and Bella) ate in their usual twin highchairs and enjoyed their tubby time together afterwards. After we were all finished eating we gathered in the living room for the gift opening… It was sooooo much fun. The babies went first along with little Owen. Kyra was at her mom’s this weekend but she will get her gifts on Monday night. We started a new tradition this year where every adult that wanted to participate had to bring a 10 dollar gift. It could be anything… and it was. There was candy, nuts, booze, nude posters (Tim’s favorite) a hair dryer and many more. The objective though was to have the first person pick and then everyone that follows could either pick from the pile or steal the gift of someone that went before them. What a hoot! AJ claimed the gift card right away but Bruce stole it. Kristina got the bottle of wine and Jennifer snagged it before anyone else could. I stole Carlos’s piggy hot gloves with the 10 dollar bill inside but felt bad afterwards… oh well J We sat around all afternoon and caught up with the family. A group headed out for a drive around the valley to see the “Amish” and another group went off to WalMart to catch the after Christmas sales (you know I went). Leftovers for supper… which were surprisingly good as usual. And then the cousins (with significant others in tow) all went out to the bowling alley to celebrate the holiday. We didn’t get to start right away because it was a league night so we hung out at the bar next door for a few hours… might have been too long of a wait. But it was fun ;) Andrew and AJ kicked out butts and I think that I had the all time lowest points in bowling… ever. Might have to try that next time sober. Thanks Theresa, Andrew, Dustin, Nikki, Justin, AJ, Andrew, Jennifer, Anna and Timmy… I will never forget the cousinly love tonight… I bet I wake up with quite the headache.