Hello there, dears!

I hope you all had a fantabulous Christmas. I hope you ate way too much, and hugged tightly, and sang songs late into the night. Because hey… we did!

Officially, we’re still on vacation. But since I haven’t blogged in 5 days (OMcG!), I thought I’d hop online this afternoon and share with you a few of our favorite Christmas pictures. Prepare for lots of pictures of our children because, well… that’s what Christmas is about around here. 🙂

We’re getting close to being back in the swing of things, though, so don’t you worry! I’ll have a few more personal blogs up this week (as well as an availability update for 2011), and then next week I’ll be sharing our New Year’s Eve wedding!

Also, we’re getting closer and closer to launching the new brand. It’s set to go live the evening of Jan. 11, so set your clocks… it’s going to be pretty rockin’!

At least for the next 4 days, though, I’m still on Christmas vacation. That means I’m going to have to have a darn good reason to bother getting out of my pjs. I wish you a relaxing week as well!

But if you’re stuck at work, or otherwise not having the week-after-Christmas of your dreams, maybe some of our family Christmas pictures will cheer you up. Some are taken with our pro gear… others were shot with our little pocket camera. They’re all special to me!

The above picture is pretty indicative of the entire week before Christmas at the McGowan house. It was warm, so the kids were pretty much naked, but they’d been sick, so they couldn’t play outside in the wind. Therefore, we dragged out every toy in the house and watched a lot of movies.

Dottie… a baby’s wonder on her first Christmas Eve!

Mack grabbed the next few for me. He knows how important is to me that my children grow to share my love of literature, and nothing makes my heart happier than reading with them! Jack’s old enough now to enjoy classics, and “new favorite” chapter books… getting to introduce Dottie to books is something I’ve been excited about since before we knew she was coming!

After the Christmas Eve service at church, we drive up the road to my grandparents’ house for soup and presents… and the reading of the Christmas story. Jack did the honors this year!

Below, you’ll see our one Christmas snaffu. Mack and I bought this inflatable ball-filled bouncy house for Dorothy for Christmas. We’d gotten one for Jack on his first birthday, and we loved him. It was small… just right for two toddling-babies to fit in at once. We assumed this was the same thing.

We were wrong. This is NOT small.

The bouncy-thing we got home with is 6 feet across and 4 feet tall… nearly taking up our whole living room. Of course, we don’t notice this until Christmas Eve at 10 p.m., far too late to return it or do anything about it. We decided to man up and use the air compressor to inflate it anyway… this is me, exhausted, right before bed!

Dorothy wasn’t daunted by the size of the thing, though. She LOVES IT!

One good thing about it being so big is that Jack can easily fit in there too, so they’ve been playing in there a lot the last few days.

While they were in there, Jack looked across the living room and noticed that Santa had left him a note in return, thanking him for the milk and cookies the kids left out! Jack was so excited to read it! (And yes, we are a magic-spreading, Santa-believing, cookie-leaving family!)

Jack’s gift from Santa was his own “grown-up” digital camera, which he has barely let out of his hands since Christmas morning. His first picture was one of Dorothy and I. 🙂

Dot’s present from Santa was this little plush rocking horse that talks. I LOVE IT, and so does she! She just sat and petted it… so sweet.

Jack gets a new pair of black high-top Converse every year, and did this year. But we decided to pile on the lovin’ this year, so he got a bright red pair as well. Think he might have been excited?

We went up to my mom’s for breakfast and more presents. Some people (like Jack) were ready to play all day, and show off their favorite presents…

… while others (like my sister and daughter) were just too tired to deal!

We closed out Christmas night much like every other special night with my family… card games and silliness. This year, Jack got a package of fake mustaches in his stocking. We definitely put them to good use!

He and his Aunt Sam decided to go the “menacing” route.

Mack and I chose to be more “snooty” with our mustaches.

The winner by a landslide, though, was Dottie and her pushbroom ‘stache. SO FUNNY!

I hope your Christmas was just as Merry as ours was. I’m already scheming for next year! 🙂

Thanks for checking in… we’ll see you soon!