a merry little christmas

holidays are always a whirlwind adventure for our family. christmas normally includes traveling the grandparent triangle (mount eden, ky to huntington, wv to cincinnati, oh) and some places in between. we are headed for our last stop today, but i thought i would share a glimpse of what the christmas holiday had to offer.i regret that i didn't take a picture of the amazing spread of food my mom prepared for us on christmas eve and the delicious breakfast both of my parents prepared on christmas morning, but i did take some pics of moments shared with family members on those days.last year my parents started the tradition of reading The Night Before Christmas to the grandchildren on christmas eve. if you look close enough at my animated father you can see he is sporting a sweet blue cast on his arm. he recently had hand surgery & is recovering. the holiday brightened his spirits so much!
here is the family portrait at my parents house for the year 2008.

as a joke on my mom's intense rooster collection we dressed wilhelm up as a baby chick (rooster) during gran's present opening time. it got lots of laughs...but not quite as many laughs as my mom got when she put it on. while i was posting this entry i thought it would be interesting to see just how much wilhelm and my nieces have changed in one year. here are the two different christmas morning pictures.aside from the physical changes that are obvious, it is amazing the personalities that they now exhibit (at least for picture taking).

AND on with the presents. our family was very blessed, and everyone had a fabulous christmas. daddy will and gran provided wilhelm instruments to start his own one man band. in the days since christmas we have had LOTS of harmonica and guitar playing by our budding musician, along with settling in our other new christmas gifts.

signing off until the new year... nothing but the best to you and yours in 2009! -our eargle family

a first annual cookie decorating party

my great friend radhika & i hosted a cookie decorating party for our children's friends & families on Sunday. both of us were novices at this type of event, but thought it to be a great tradition to start for our families.

we got together on friday and baked quite a few sugar and gingerbread cookies. each were cut out as holiday figures and then we froze them, to keep them yummy, until sunday's party.

though we had some last minute cancellations the party went lovely. each family decorated six cookies with a variety of goodies, including m & m's, gumdrops, sprinkles, licorice laces, candy corn, and three colored icings. their goodies were packaged in little, brown craft paper boxes and sent home for the families to enjoy or give as gifts.

amazingly clean-up wasn't as bad as i'd expected. sprinkles and two year olds doesn't always match! and i learned that my husband is pretty handy at decorating cookies.

below are a couple of pics of wilhelm's masterpieces. uncle justin helped wilhelm to start, then daddy took over.

a office christmas party and santa encounter...

this past saturday we went to alan's workplace family christmas party. since his plant has endured many layoffs in 2008 it was decided to forgo the adult formal party and do a family, mid-day one instead. it was two hours of entertainment and presents for children, and a very kind gesture.

the party included a local clown named Gimbo and of course Santa & his elf.

Gimbo's entertainment truly amazed wilhelm & he enjoyed the juggling, the comedy and the balloon figures that the clown produced.the clown made wilhelm his very own orange, wiener dog. it lasted for a whole 20 minutes before he managed to pop it. it was replaced with an orange sword.

wilhelm's santa experience went totally different than the clown experience.
prior to arriving at the party our son was LOTS of talk. he kept repeating SANTA CLAUS and seemed quite excited about meeting the jolly guy. the picture explains it all!
to his defense, he was two hours tardy for his nap and the pair posing as the old st.nick & his elf were a little creepy. regardless, we love this picture that captures just how hard everyone was working to get his attention, including the camera guy with his squeaky ball.

once on the other side of the room wilhelm had recaptured his interest in santa. thankfully, it is now all a forgotten memory to him.

a nice thanksgiving holiday celebrated

this thanksgiving we headed on our usual journey to baltimore, although this year it was not by plane, but instead by car. the head colds that we all had made the trip seem like it took for days, but the outcome of the trip was worth it. we spent four days with alan's grandparents in baltimore, along with seeing other family while we were there. they all got their dose of wilhelm love and he enjoyed himself to the fullest. here are a few scenes from our days there.
preparation for the thanksgiving feast starts days before the actual event, but some of the dishes must be executed on the day of. we always help grand po mix his MASSIVE tub of famous dressing. it makes enough dressing for the masses and even neighbors. if you aren't able to tell we use a large rubbermaid tote to do the mixing in. seriously!
for some reason this picture would not allow me to insert it correctly, but you are still able to see how much wilhelm & i enjoyed our task, even if we weren't all the way finished getting ready for the day.same problem with this picture, wacky. this is the whole clan!
we also were around to celebrate grand po's 81st birthday. it is tradition that he gets his cherry cream pie (a family recipe from days past). he also got to wear a cool birthday hat constructed by alan's dad.

it was good times had by all in baltimore this holiday season and we look forward to our next visit.