A Moldy Family Christmas

In the last few years, we've begun celebrating the Moldy Family Christmas after Christmas Day, to accommodate the spouses and growing families. So for Christmas 2012, we gathered on December 27th to enjoy the day as a family. We started with the traditional Moldy Christmas dinner - ham, cheesy potatoes (old school, thanks to Ben who got up early to peel potatoes), peas, and Dad's applesauce. Of course, there was no lack of desserts... all day long.

For Henry, Christmas was his first opportunity to meet his uncles Ben & Josh.Uncle Ben was came in town from Houston, along with his fiancee Lynice (wedding to come in April 2013). Although Uncle Ben is a life-long U of M fan, he did bring along some adorable camouflage baby booties - with Longhorns on them. :)

Uncle Josh took his turn cuddling with little Henry as well - getting in some practice before the next baby Moldy will arrive in May 2013. We think he's a natural (Micah is predicting a boy and suggested that they use his name choice of "Sticker"... it does have a nice ring, especially if they considered using Jen's maiden name as a middle name... "Sticker Price"!).

After dinner was finished, we got down to the business of opening gifts. There's a reason we need a full day for this event - we open gifts one at a time and everyone watches! Micah added an orange tie to his growing collection (perhaps an option to wear at Uncle Ben's wedding?).

And the cowboy hat - that definitely will need to be on the packing list for our trip down to Texas in April.

It was fun experiencing Christmas presents with the toddlers, though they ended up getting a nap half way through the process and resuming after they were well-rested (such a good plan!).

They did get a kick out of doing the log roll on Grandma & Poppa's gift - a mystery to them since it was delivered a few weeks earlier... it ended up being quite a surprise - a memory foam mattress (who would have guessed from the packaging!).

December 27 was special for another reason as well - it was Andy's 29th birthday. So later in the day (after the "Christmas part" of the day was officially done), we had cake and sang Happy Birthday (repeatedly, of course, just to irritate the in-laws).

Our collective gift to Andy was $ towards mounting the rack of his monster buck he got during deer season. The gift was creatively packaged as well (that's a reindeer head poking out of the box)!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and enjoying each other's company. Henry snuggled up for a while with his new cousin-to-be and Auntie Jen.

Of course, Grandma had her turn as well.

One of the traditions we always uphold is putting together a puzzle as a family in the evening after opening gifts. It's usually a puzzle that reflects something about the year. For example, this year, Josh & Jen brought a puzzle from Maine, where they honeymooned in July.

The kiddos got into the act as well with puzzles more fit to their style (though Micah did enjoy sitting at the table with the big guys and "helping" with their puzzle).

But the biggest surprise of the day, beyond the mattress and deer head in a package, was the puzzle that David and Jamie brought for us to put together. It revealed a very exciting image!

We now look forward to a Moldy family wedding in the summer of 2014 as well! And are delighted to be adding Jamie to our family.

The beautiful ring - a family heirloom from her grandmother.

What a great way to end 2012 - with the anticipation of some wonderful blessings to come in the next few years!