it’s not quite over yet, because i haven’t posted my millions of photos here.

(this is chocolate-covered bacon, courtesy of aunt kim.)

during the actual christmas weekend, jason and i went to south dakota to celebrate with my family. we hung out with a bunch of my hometown friends on friday night (and mostly had the karaoke stage to ourselves), celebrated with my mom’s family on saturday (christmas eve), and celebrated with my dad’s family on sunday (christmas day).

other long-overdue posts on the way: the monday after christmas was for celebrating bertine and zach’s wedding. last weekend, we drove down to des moines to celebrate christmas (and nephew jaxon’s second birthday) with jason’s family.

that’s a lot of celebrating!

this is the face that hannie makes when she is excited but shy. she’s a pretty adorable kid!

have i mentioned the four shih tzus that accompany my mom’s side of the family?

we have been doing a white elephant-style gift exchange for quite a few years now. the premise is that you roll the dice and if you get a pair (or two pair), you can pick a gift (or two gifts) from either the pile in the middle or you can steal from someone who has two or more gifts. this year, dad tried to steal a gift from hannie and you know what she did?

she cried. of course. don’t steal gifts from the baby of the family!

jeremy got a jar of preserved lemons. what would you do with that?

pretty much all of jason’s gifts were for me (zebra-print snuggie, bubble bath, fondue set for two — i suppose maybe i’ll share that one with him).

i like this sequence of photos. dog in box — kid petting dog in box — kid in box.

these desserts may look the same but one was pistachio and the other was chocolate. i tried both, both were awesome.

later on christmas eve, after returning to my parents’ house, we had our own little christmas. hannie is very good at opening presents!

i gave bryan coffee and sausage for christmas. he claimed it was exactly what he wanted.

dad got a giant box of chocolate and a donut maker.

jason got a domo calendar and many home depot gift cards (and we got a joint home depot gift card) — time to get crackin’ on those home projects!

this face is for ryan, the sender of the “unicorn meat” for bryan.

actual bits of “meat” inside! too funny.

a couple of my christmas gifts. (have i mentioned i’m in love with my iphone? last night it kept me up 30 minutes after i meant to go to bed — this happens too often now.)

hannie would later tell me not to mess up her piggies.

can you guess what this gift from pop-pop is?

hannie’s first fishing pole! we all had to make sure she didn’t swing it into our heads for the rest of the night. and the next morning.

(playing with the bokeh kit, which has all kinds of fun shapes.)

i wish i looked less tired in this photo, but as joyful and exciting as it had been, it had also been a long christmas eve day.

bryan and jason helped mom frost christmas cookies before we all wound down and went to bed. (visions of sugar-plums dancing in our heads…)

we went to grandma d’s house for christmas day. bryan and dad made homemade ice cream, yum!

three kinds of soup for lunch: zuppe toscana, chili, and chicken noodle.

homemade vanilla ice cream and jason’s egg nog cookies for dessert. yum x 2!

we all watched with excitement as hannie opened her gifts from “owl grandma.”

this is the view from grandma’s house, so we also watched the sheep graze all day.

hannie and i played with my iphone. she wanted me to try on aunt deb’s glasses, too.

jason and i drove home to minneapolis from grandma d’s house. on the way, i introduced him to the jolly green giant in blue earth, minnesota.

and when we got home, the kitties got to enjoy their christmas gift from hannie:

i’m finding that my iphone isn’t quick enough to properly capture playful cats!