Christmas in April

Christmas in April? Well . . . since I finally uploaded all of my photos to photobucket I'm excited to get the photos up here . . . soooo, yes it's a little late for a Christmas post, oh well, life would be boring if we always played by the rules, right? :-)

Oh Christmas Tree, I think I mentioned before, but this tree was just so special to us. Yes it was small and sure we only had a few select ornaments on it, but we had a tree! And it was beautiful!

Christams Eve at the Sponseller's is always a fun time! Everyone's together laughing, eating and just enjoying each other's company!

Their beautiful tree with so many special ornaments! All of the non-breakable ones towards the bottom since someone, not mentioning any names **Johnathan**, was really into taking each ornament down or grabbing for and touching everything shiny!

We decided to let Johnathan open his own little four-wheeler that night, here he is checking it out for the first time . . .

We had to bring it outside to let him try it out! And while he didn't really understand the mechanics of it all, he LOVED it!

Like I said, he didn't understand the whole "push the button and it moves automatically" nope, my little guy decided pushing it was much more fun!

Back inside loving up all the attention Aunt Janet send his way!

Oh I just love this photo! To me it speaks volumes . . . really can't you just imagine what's going on in their minds here!

Holidays bring the family together! Love it!

Dinner time, yummy!

Our happy family! And everyone's smiling! Well, kinda!

Now for the fun stuff! Tearing into wrapped presents! Last year he didn't quite understand, but this year he totally got it and was very excited!

Happy baby = Happy Mama!!

Taking his time testing out the new fun toy!

And onto the next gift!

Hanging out . . . relaxing

Grandma reading Johnathan one of his new Christmas books!

Back home, tucked Johnathan in bed and before we knew it Santa had come to drop off all the goodies!

Waking up Christmas morning!

I just love watching him see all of the presents and the look on his face. By the way he recovered quickly from the fall at the end!

Digging into the Dinosaurs!

Ripping through the presents one after another!

I just love it when he does things like this, a totally grown up boy thing like laying on his tummy playing with a new toy . . . love it!

Then we made it over to my Mom's for more festivities! Santa left lots of toys there too! Including a life-size Elmo doll that Johnathan loved!

And a fun little couch . . . I don't know who's bigger John or Elmo!?

Merry Christmas! What a yummy breakfast!

Nothing better than Grandma's chocolate chip pancakes!

Auntie Kris got Johnathan a fun rug with roads for all of his trucks and cars! He plays with it all the time!

Johnathan showing Daddy another one of his Elmo toys!

Awwe, matching vests!!!

This was one of Johnathan's favorites! His very own easel!

We went home for a quick nap and then headed over to Aunty Karen and Uncle Drew's for dinner! Here's Nikki and Em taking John for a ride!

Oh it won't be long before they are driving real cars!!!

We played a little football in the cul-de-sac . . . Kurt's showing Aunty Karen his throwing style!

And Aunty Karen is showing us her catching style! Go for it Aunty Karen!!!

And here are the cheerleaders!! What a beautiful group of ladies!!!

Jeff and Kevin took John on a little ride around in the golf cart!

I was a little nervous, but Jeff assured me he would drive slow and safe . . . who wouldn't trust a face like that?!

Love it! Matching shirts and all! :-)

Sisters! :-)

Then Johnathan decided to take over the football game!

More cheerleaders!!! Go team go!

My goodness, the fun never ended! Next up was chalk! We attempted to draw an outline of Aunty Karen but then someone had to go an add on, ummm, anatomically correct body parts and it quickly became a PG-13 game! hehehe

Then we let Johnathan go to town! The boy loves chalk and drawing!!

He wants to go over THERE!

Hanging out with Em . . .

Like I said, we really had a full day of fun! Next up was make your own ornaments. Kris came up with this idea and it was lots of fun. You get a plain glass ornament, take off the top, drop some paint in, put the top back on and swirl the paint around to make a very unique ornament. They were all beautiful!

Yummy family dinner! :-)

Then we ended the night by driving around the neighborhood which was decked out to the nines with lights everywhere. This neighborhood is so famous in Naples that people line up for hours to drive through! The houses always look so beautiful! Johnathan really enjoyed pointing out all the lights!

And just as an example of the length these neighbors go to . . . check this out!

Whew! I am so glad I just went back and remembered what a fun and special day we had this past Christmas. We spent lots of time with family, we ate some delicious food, we laughed and remembered fun stories, and we made really fun new memories too! Makes me feel so thankful to live so close to our families!