Emil wearing what he calls his (k)nightmare suit!
This Christmas was our best yet. It seems that the boys have reached the magical age, the age when they are equally excited and grateful when the day arrives, equally kind and generous, tired but happy. It was a rough Christmas Eve, with Oliver’s excitement impeding everyone’s good night sleep — “Did Santa come? Is it morning?” at equal increments throughout the night from 12:30 on until 5:30am. But despite the sleepless night, we all enjoyed present-giving and opening, pastries for breakfast, and a wonderful afternoon playing outside (it was warm enough to get away with sweaters!).
We did laundry and cleaned up and packed for the next day of travel, when we left early in the morning for Ohio to visit our extended families. Andrew’s mom surprised us by taking all the cousins out to her house for a little farm fun (hence no pictures of children below), leaving us in the good care of Andrew’s brother and sister-in-law, Bill and Annie. But before she carted them off, we had the most epic nerf gun and slingshot fight (Andrew and I were awfully proud of our welt-inducing slingshot wounds). The kids were only somewhat involved, ducking out of the high-powered shots — the adults were the ones dripping in sweat and covered in red marks by the end of it all.
They took us out to dinner at Metropole, an amazing restaurant in the downstairs of a pretty rockin’ hotel and gallery. We ate the most amazing meal, lingering for coffee and tea afterwards (tequila for Andrew!) before heading into the gallery, where Bill bought a sculpture of a hand for us to take home (I LOVE it!). 
The time we spent with these two was priceless — really, we were laughing the entire time, but we really wished Andrew’s other brother Ryan and his wife Kristin could have joined us. Next time we’ll make it happen!
The remainder of our time with Andrew’s family was a blast. We joined up with a large portion of his extended family for a spaghetti dinner with all the kids, then crashed at Bill & Annie’s house afterward, bodies flung onto sleeping bags in the living room floor, the couch, and their cousins’ rooms. Thank you for putting up with us, guys! We had a blast.
21c Hotels are very cool, and I love Cincinnati. (I grew up not too far south of there.) The knightmare suit is just too much. I love it.
Beautiful photos. Would you mind posting what some of your boys got? The trailer/truck looking two with the two bears in it is so awesome! I think my son would really enjoy that or something similar.
Margaret, thank you! And no, I don’t mind. I’ll do a post about it that will go up on Wednesday around noon.
Thanks so much. Excited to see. The post of books you just recently put up is great too. I would enjoy those books even for myself! I agree with you on some of the best magic being found in books.
Yes! I love the Metropole. We ate with the yellow penguin too. The gallery is also very interesting.