merry nate & bri christmas!

so nate and i celebrated our christmas this morning :)  (much like the pennsylvania 'thanksmas,' we move the holiday to where it's convenient!)  we played scrabble on 'christmas eve' lastnight.  i thought our santa table decoration coordinated rather well with the scrabble bag.  doesn't it look like his bag of toys?

 

it was a tough board!  we were mostly confined to the lower corner due to some bad start out words (ahem... nate)  and my letters were atrocious!  at one point, i swear i had all i's.  and this rack, which totally made me want to spell hee-haw (but i doubt that's an acceptable scrabble word!)

then nate spelled 'pinna,' which i challenged, and lost.  apparently pinna is a long forgotten botany word.  i don't think he knew that though, i think he just got lucky!  :)

 

after christmas eve, we were excited for christmas morning to arrive!  we got up early(ish) and started with stockings!  (ours are new this year, i finally found some i really liked :)  cleo's has been around for a few years though)

 

then we had the dogs pose by the tree.  for those of you who don't know, benny is a dog we've been dogsitting for the past month and a half (his owner was injured and can't walk him at the moment).  he went home today, but not before he and cleo got their picture together.  you may remember that cleo doesn't like to sit too near other dogs. 

can you believe that pile of gifts in the back is all for us?  nate went a bit overboard this year :)  he even had a few adressed to himself.... from santa.  including this one, a book on tennis skills:

 

santa was all about tennis this year.  he also got nate and i a costco size supply of tennis balls, and a ball hopper!  i got all kinds of goodies including a new camera bag to hold all my gear, a really cool calendar of paris, cool photography books, a new outift, etc.  :)

after 'christmas morning' we had what nate affectionately calls 'mexican breakfast':  refried beans, fried potatoes, and tortillas.  it was super tasty if i do say so myself :)  

and the best part is?  christmas isn't even over yet!  lots more family time to come :)  hope your holidays are happy!