Christmas

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from Christmas. I had been battling an upper respiratory thing the week before Christmas which I thought was on it's way out when I suddenly took a turn for the worse on Christmas Eve. I got through Christmas and then spent most of the following day in bed. It's been hard catching up. Of course at the same time I also received all this information from the travel department at Great Wall. So, blogging has been way down on the list as I try to get a handle on everything. Here's a glimpse at Christmas---

Christmas day-Ella in her Christmas dress, and J, as always, in his newest football jersey from my mom.
This was Brody all tired out after the Christmas festivities!
During dessert on Christmas Eve Mom always breaks out the "poppers" and we all wear the paper crowns found inside. Don't we look cool????
You'll see from this picture and the next that Mom and Gram had the very same reaction when opening their gifts. Mom got the audio books from the Twilight series. Gram got mason jars---explanation---when I was a kid Gram used to make her own pickles. They were the only pickles I ever liked. I've been asking her for years to make pickles and she always come up with an excuse why she can't. Her latest excuse was that she didn't have jars----so now she does---NO MORE EXCUSES GRAM!!!!!!

Yes, very bad lighting, but it would have been a nice picture
Yes, another explanation---apparently there is a song about "Chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side"---I have no idea, but it's always been this inside joke between Jason and Ella. So when Ella asked Jason what he wanted her to get him for Christmas he said "chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side"----so that's what she gave him!

Ella loved her Cinderella perfume from Brianna!
From Jason to Ella-Hulk hands-again another little inside joke of theirs. She's now been beating him up for days!