Buzz Lightyear

Christmas Day 2011

Amazingly, the kids were NOT the first ones up on Christmas morning. How many more years will that be the case?? Nevertheless, Aiden could barely contain his excitement when he came down to find that Santa really did come while he'd been sleeping last night. Not only that, but he and his reindeer ate the treats, AND left a letter for Aiden & Bree.

Welcome to Aiden's new dino den. The decals from Nan & Pop were a huge hit! He HAD to put them up in his room immediately.

The lego table from Santa doubles as a dino farm. This was certainly the Christmas of dinosaurs for Aiden (or Dino Dan, as he often now calls himself....)

Reading the Gingerbread Baby with Grampy. A favorite new book from Elizabeth.

And reading it yet again with Grammy.....Pretty sure she had it read to her at least 10 times before the day was done.

The kids' tree. :-)

What a Christmas! Good Night!

Twas The Night Before Christmas

After an exhausting, but very fun, Christmas party with the Couture side of the family up in Maine, we traveled back home (with Grammy & Grampy!) to get ready for Christmas at our house. Before bed, the kids drew some pictures and left treats for Santa and his reindeer.

Christmas Eve-Eve Pajama Party

At Uncle Barrio's insistence, the attire for this year's Barriault Family get together was PJs (and / or Dora the Explorer princess dress...).

Joe Joe, Bree and Grammy get silly on the floor.

Amazed that ALL these are for him!

Grammy & the grandkiddies.

"Dora" taking care of her new dollhouse baby.

Favorite Activity

Frosty

What do you know?? We got some fluffy white stuff just in time for Phase I of Christmas up at the lake in Maine!! Packing snowpants was a good move, that's for sure!

Gymnastics Superstar

Ta-Da!

Santa's Elves

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Pretending to love each other and get along at Costco after being warned that Santa might be in the vicinity....

Bedtime Ballarina

Bree insisted on wearing her pink tutu to bed. Sometimes you just gotta pick your battles....

Pizza Eating Pirate

Happy Birthday, Oden!

Aiden's buddy Oden invited us to his 4th birthday party today. Adam drove everyone to the party.

But then he drank too many juice boxes, so Aiden drove everyone home. (If you'd seen Aiden drive, however, you'd have thought HE was the one who'd drank too many juice boxes....)

Bree & her new best friend, Elizabeth.

Trimmin' The Tree

A Christmas Tree Adventure

Little did we know what a long afternoon this would turn out to be. We arrived at Durkee Farm, a few miles from home, to cut our own tree as we do every year, only to find that they were SOLD OUT (on the 2nd weekend of December?!?!?). After calling a number of other cut-your-own-tree places in the area, and finding them ALL to be closed for the season, we ended up at what appeared to be more of a "former" tree farm in Groton. Not exactly the easy breezy Christmas tree cutting adventure that we'd set out for. Long story short, the trees were all enormous (at the least the nice looking ones), you have to claw your way through the prickle brush while searching for a tree, and Daddy's saw (a Marden's special....) was not adequate for the job at hand. We all somehow managed to survive, mostly unscathed....

Looking a little worried for Daddy....

Yep - that's our tree. No lie....

2 1/2 hours later......

Holy Sugar!

Aiden's masterpiece from Kid Ventures (post preschool "enrichment"). Clearly today's topic was NOT nutrition....

The Sunday Circulars

Gotta love the Sunday morning circulars before Christmas. Every page of Toys R Us has about 10 toys that Aiden NEEDS Santa to bring....

Oh You Better Watch Out!

Our Annual Formal Portraits

Unlike last year, Bree was all (goofy) smiles for the photographer this year. Whew!

Aiden knows how it's done.

Maybe next year we'll be able to get her to keep her tongue in her mouth! Haha!! :-)

And our first ever formal family photo.