Our Christmas Eve

Ez hamming it up while road-tripping.

We're back! We spent the last 5 days visiting family and friends in Modesto. I thought maybe I'd try to post a few blogs while I was there, but obviously that didn't happen. We were so busy visiting everyone and soaking up the company that there wasn't time for bloggy stuff. In other words, it was exactly the way Christmas should be ;)  Expect several posts about our trip this week, because we did way too much to cram it all into one post. We'll start with Christmas Eve.

For as long as I can remember, with the exception of last year when Joe had to work, I've spent Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family at my aunt's house. Joe got lucky this year and he only has to work from home from Christmas Eve through January 5th, so bright and early (or actually, just early, since the sun wasn't up yet) we hit the road, grabbed breakfast, and made the 6 hour road trip up to Modesto. Ez slept most of the way, and aside from one little fussy period when we stopped at Target for snacks and cheap toys, Ez did great. I bought him a 5 pack of mini-tractors and just handed them back to him one at a time as he got restless. That entertained him for a good two hours. $5 very well spent.

We arrived before noon, and Joe stuck around the hotel to do some work while Ez and I went to my parents house to help make sugar cookies. One of my favorite Christmas traditions - so yummy!

That evening we all packed ourselves into two cars and headed over to my aunt's house. There are a lot of cousins, so it's always a full house and a ton of fun. This was Ez and Joe's first time going, and since Ez is the only little kid in the family at the moment, he got spoiled BIG TIME. He got a rocking giraffe, a motorized Lightning McQueen, a Go Go Smart Wheels, and several other toys. He loved sitting in his shiny new Lightning McQueen and ripping out the steering wheel, which we couldn't figure out how to attach correctly. After a few rounds of laughs when he grabbed the steering wheel, waved it in the air, and demanded that Grampa re-attach it, he decided that was the funnest game of the night and proceeded to do it over and over. And over. Whatever keeps him happy, right?

We stayed until 11 pm, and of course Ez fell asleep as soon as his head hit the carseat. There's nothing cuter than an exhausted baby in Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve: