Merry Christmas 2010

This was such a wonderful Christmas! As usual, we packed a million things and family gatherings into a 48 hour period.

Kick-off! Christmas Eve 3:30pm - Bleythings arrive at Holy Trinity for Christmas Eve mass with Matt's family. The boys were pretty good considering we were sitting in the general population and not the cry room. Just to be fair, I should say we did feed them the entire time. After Mass we went back to Matt's parents for an hour before heading to my Aunt Linda and Uncle Dave's for all the Christmas Eve games.


The kids take this picture in front of the alter every year. This was Ben and Sam's 1st year in the picture :) Look at that good lookin' bunch- I've got the cutest niece and nephews :)


The night...and the holiday was a little spoiled for me and almost tragic when Ben choked on a piece (actually several pieces he stuffed in his mouth) of bread. It was by far the scariest moment of my life. My little guy turned bright red and wasn't making a sound. I turned him over and started hitting his back. After a few second...I think....the bread flew out and he was crying hysterically. He has not been his usual self during meal time since then. I think he is still scared from it and I KNOW I am still shaken. If this happened to you and you can't post comments on here please email me because I would love to know it happens to other people too! I really am writing lightly about it compared to how disturbingly close we came to tragedy. We learned a lot from this experience. Let's continue and try to do the same as I did the rest of Christmas- try not to think about it!

Later on in the night, the kids opened gifts and were completely spoiled!

You can see Sam on the left checking out his new lawn mower. Ben got one too but here he is more interested in Grandpa:

Ben sneaking off and opening other people's presents:
We also ate a TON of shrimp, tamales, BBQ ribs, brisket, sides, desserts, etc! And, of course, drank our weight in pop. The fight producing games were played....white elephant and Bingo. Cousin Nick was the Bingo caller and pretty much took everyone's card away for being too "sassy". I won the Situation's Ab workout on DVD during the white elephant game - six pack here I come! Aunt Linda added a new game called "pass the pickle", which ended in my mom yelling at my aunt and cousin. All of this for the grand prize - a huge jar of pickles!

The boys didn't go to bed until 10:15pm - 3 hours past their bedtime!

Christmas morning was pretty calm. Santa brought Ben and Sam chairs with their names on it. Thanks Grandma Bleything for helping Santa embroider their names on them :)

Boys using chairs properly:
Sam demonstrating how they will actually be used:

Here we are opening some other gifts:

About 4 years ago we started a tradition of taking a picture of whatever our family looks like Christmas morning. Last year we are smiling by the tree...our 1 month old boys sweetly sleeping in our arms. Since we set the timer we were able to document the debacle of trying to get a half way decent family pic this year. And, yes, all of these were supposed to be "the one":


The "one":
Even though we said we weren't going to get each other anything since we bought a new TV to put on the wall so the boys couldn't pull it down on top of them, Matt surprised me with a new laptop!! I should say my 1st laptop since I've never had one before! He's so sweet and always surprises me with the best gifts!! I am doing my blog post on it right now! Thanks Mootsie!

After the boys took a nap we went to my parents house and opened gifts with them and my sister and her boyfriend. Ben and Sam don't really open gifts but loved playing with all the toys at Grandma and Grandpas house!
A couple of elves also visited Grandma and Grandpa's house to make sure the boys liked their new toys. They kept pointing to them and saying "that!":

From my parents we went to Aunt Tracy and Uncle Bryan's house for Christmas with Matt's side of the family. The boys had a blast playing with all of their cousins and Aunts,Uncles and Grandparents! The food and drink was absolutely amazing! Tracy made THE BEST prime rib I have ever eaten! The sides and desserts were sooooo good and gourmet! Can you tell my favorite part of Christmas?
Ben and Sam especially loved the slide that Grandma and Grandpa gave them:

Aunt Allison and smiling Sam:


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!