Christmas - holidays

Well Christmas and the holidays are finally over! We had a very busy time. For christmas eve we had my parents and Kaitlyn over, Zander enjoyed it a lot - grandma epp read Kaitlyn and him an x-mas story before bed and he's been requesting the same story every night since! When Zander woke up on christmas morning the first thing he saw in the living room was the present from Santa - a tool bench! His jaw dropped and he ran to it, it was a perfect christmas moment, of course he didn't want to open any other presents as he was happy as could be fixing things! On christmas morning we went to Grandma and Grandpa Rawsons to open presents - Melissa, Jody, Aidan, Michelle and Jody 2 were already there. I think Zanders favorite thing was Aidan new electric 4-wheeler - needless to say come spring Zander will be getting his own for outside! Zander was a very spoilt boy from his grandparents and aunties and uncles - I'm not sure where we are going to put all the new toys in our house :)
After opening presents it was off to the civic center for Hill family christmas. There was tons of food and lots of great company. Zander had an amazing time - he loved all the girls following him around playing with him - thanks so much, Chelsea, Michaela, and Shantelle! Christmas afternoon for us was spent napping! We left to go visit Grandma Tyson and instead fell asleep at Grandma Rawsons house and slept the afternoon away - I guess that's what happens when you have a two year old and a newborn! But we were able to get a quick visit with Grandma Tyson and then headed back to the civic center for more food! Madison got held lots on Christmas day and did really well.
Boxing day and the 27th were spent with my family at Grandma and Grandpa Epps. It was a much smaller christmas than last year, and a little sadder with the adsence of Melanie. I find myself really thinking about her at this time of year and talking to Zander about her lots, I didn't realize I was doing it until Zander asked me one morning "Auntie Melanie sleeping still?" and I realized that he was waiting for me to say "good morning Auntie Melanie, we love you". I'm glad Zander still remembers her and talks about her, that's something I want to keep going. Chris took Zander skating for the first time over the holidays - just with skates that hook to the boots, Zander wasn't all that interested in skating and enjoyed it more when he just went with his boots on the ice. Christmas was also nice spending time with nephew Matthew. By Christmas time he wasn't able to eat much but he still loved being around family and he would still get into debates. The last picture I have of him is with Emma and Nicole, his mom, he was wearing a tuxedo t-shirt he got from Uncle Michael and Aunt Joanne and he was so proud of that shirt! So it was another wonderful holiday season with lots of memories made and good times had.