Johnson Christmas

We made the almost 12 hour trek to Placerville this year to have Christmas with the Johnsons. It could be a 10 hour drive with no stops, but it seems the more kids we have, the longer potty and food breaks take (and we have more stops in general). However, the kids were AWESOME and Penelope didn't have one accident on the entire round trip, even though she is only fairly recently potty trained. She redeemed herself after the last few trips, which were pretty rough.

We went to Erick and Megan's for Christmas Eve and had a Chinese food dinner with them and Grandma and Grandpa Johnson. Grandma can't be out and about for very long so we only got to see them for a few hours. We also got to meet Polly Lou, Erick and Megan's new baby, born on December 1st. The kids made gingerbread houses and played in their huge playroom all night.

Both of these five year olds are missing their bottom two teeth!

Matt was one of the few people who could hold Polly on this visit - most of us were recovering from a cold.

Then we spent Christmas Day at my parent's house and opened presents - Kenny came up that morning to join us. I was terrible at taking photos on this trip - I had forgotten our nice camera and my phone was always dead or frozen - time for a new one.

Dad made a pheasant dinner for us that afternoon along with all the sides from Mom and Megan - they are over turkey and ham, they said. Pheasant breaded and fried in butter is fine by me!

Penelope was in stuffed animal heaven in my old bedroom - I think my mom is starting to hoard stuffed teddy bears because they certainly weren't there when Becky and I shared that room.

A Dad's rite of passage - reading the instructions! Miles had a Transformer toy that took about
20 steps to morph from car to Bumblebee.

It was a very camo Christmas at the Johnson's this year - I think we were the only non-hunters in the bunch. Everyone, including my mom, got camo gear except for me :) Even Matt got a desert camo shirt for his shooting trips to Front Sight. However, Penelope enjoyed this camo hat that sang "Grandma got ran over by a reindeer"- moving antlers and all. 

We had a great visit - kids had fun with their cousins and we were happy to meet Polly. It is so nice having our kids all close together in age - close in distance, that's another story. Matty is not far behind - he and Alexis are expecting their first baby, sometime in June or July I think. So they will pick up where we stop - and our youngest will be close in age to their oldest.