Christmas 2008

Santa sure "spoiled" the Anderson household. We were told that Santa was cutting back this year but I am not sure if Santa understands cutbacks. Rylee really got into opening her presents. Her eyes would light up as she was opening it, then she would play with it for a little while til someone gave her another one. It was fun to watch.

Wow, the presents stacked up taller than Rylee.

She walked right up to all the presents and then turned and gave us a huge smile. It was like she actually understood that these boxes were filled with toys for her.

We sure had a great Christmas! Christmas evening my mom's side of the family (the Truscott's) came over and we had a huge turkey and ham dinner. It was delicious! We just hung out all evening together and enjoyed spending time with each other.

Grandma Sally with all her Grandkids

Rylee was hamming it up later that evening. She was running around laughing in her Elmo pajama's, dancing, and talking a lot. On this trip she really started talking more. She learned to say Gramma, Grampa, Auntie, and Elmo. My brothers worked on "Uncle" with her but that word was a little more difficult for her. She also started saying "Rylee" and "Where are you?". When she is hiding we kind of sing it to her and now she sings it back. It's really cute. Its her first sentence so I'll have to record it sometime.

On Saturday evening we had Christmas with the Anderson family. The Anderson family is getting so big and I have to say it is quite chaotic, but fun, when we are all together. We are up to 13 great grandchildren and 2 more on the way.

Marissa (my cousin Aaron's wife) and I are due on the same day!

Rylee and Grady playing with their toys

10 of the 13 great grandchildren are under 5. We tried to take a group picture and as you can imagine it was pretty hard. Here is 8 of the great grandchildren.

The Anderson cousins (minus Derek, Amy, Dave, Travis, Rachel, Joel, and Ed)

We had so much fun while we were home but of course the time goes by way too fast! We had to leave on Sunday morning. I always hate saying our "byes", it makes me sad that we live so far away. I am not sure when our next get together will be but hopefully not too long. Our trip back to Indy was much better than the way up. The roads were bare and it only took us a little over 10 hours so that was a huge relief. And Rylee was surprisingly good on both rides. We bought a new portable DVD player for her and some new movies and she really seemed to like them, especially her Elmo movie. Yeah!