road tripping it part 2

this was taken Christmas morning.
we really thought all of the kids would be up crazy early, but it was only ours that were. beatrix cried in the night and so when i finally got her back to sleep i heard a little voice from the top bunk that said, "mama can't i go and check my stocking?" i told him no and that it was only 4:30. when i retold that story to his father, who was up at 6:00 due to a similar Christmas excitement, he was pretty proud to say the least. from 7:00 until the other kids got up at 8:30 it was just our little family in the living room. matt had made a fire and we decided to let micah open his stocking while he was waiting. in it was a watch, which had been on his wish list, candy and silly bands. the rest of the morning was a great time of opening gifts with steve and vera's family and having a delicious breakfast together, complete with cinnamon rolls and egg casseroles.

micah and briana, steve and vera's youngest really bonded over our visit.

micah opening his triceratops pillow pet, which are all the rage this year.

bea and uncle steve opening her tools from daddy.

later that afternoon we headed over to Matt's parents for the whole family celebration. this is Micah with Olivia, Peter and Dajana's little one and Elise, Mark and Katie's oldest.

Beatrix with her new jewelry.

Micah excited to open his Ice Age 3 dvd from grandma and grandpa.
(side note-he watched it 5 times driving back to florida and laughed every time like it was the first time he had seen it.)

the wednesday after Christmas we took the kids down to the outdoor ice skating rink in grand rapids. it was micah's first time skating and he was so excited. matt and micah brought their skates all the way from florida! we had to go!!

first time around

trying it out by himself

we met up with our friends the sopers.

micah loving ice skating and catching on pretty quickly
(side note-while i am taking this picture matt is whispering in my ear that we seriously have to get him into hockey when we get home cause he is a "natural" skater.)

beatrix getting in on the "skating"

after this day i really didn't take too many more pics. i don't know what happened. i slacked off i guess. we left two days after this pic and headed back to ohio for a new year's eve night with some friends. the next morning we snuck out of the house early in the morning and started the drive back to south florida. it rained all the way home! and i mean every step of the way. saturday night right before we got to atlanta we got a text message from matt's brother saying that we weren't going to believe it but it was snowing like crazy. you see we went to michigan because we missed family, but we also really missed snow. and there was some snow, but it really only snowed one night while we were there. we laughed about it! i will say it was nice being up north but it was also really great coming home. especially since the day we got home it was 75 and with another text from matt's brother we found out that the snow storm the day before had turned into a blizzard.