2009 WRAP-UP

Brad and I were able to spend a week and half in Naperville for Christmas. And despite my continued (but much tapered) nausea coupled now with daily headaches I had a great and relaxing time. Lots of card playing, movie watching, and eating. Per the usual Carn family fun. At the highpoint on New Years Eve we had 9 adults, 11 kids, 2 unborn babies, and one melt-your-heart puppy. Did I mention that the puppy was ADORABLE? I didn’t have to sleep in the laundry room next to his crate (like his 8-year old owner did) so he was especially ADORABLE. Brad and I could have taken him home in a second. But we kept telling ourselves – human baby on the way, human baby on the way. Anyway, we had fun spending time with family and even went to dinner with our friends Nick and Christina (who we bored with 2 hours of pregnancy talk! sorry!). It was one of the first times Brad and I felt like we had a good long vacation. I honestly think the shorter vacations are harder to come back from.

With all the chaos around I felt like we didn’t take a lot of pictures but we did catch a few, here are some of the highlights:


We got to see the oldest Carn grandchild, McKenzie, on Christmas Day which was lovely because we haven't seen her in a year.

Here is the traditional Christmas morning picture, youngest to oldest.

Grace and Cassidy playing in the snow.

The snow fort! Ken is the one in the scary mask with Spencer. Bryn is on the right and I believe that is Carson's fanny trying to crawl out of the fort. Ken, Brad, and Spencer plowed and shoveled snow for about an hour to get this sucker big enough to hollow out... it will probably be melting until May.

Me and Chewbacca (they call him Chewy).

Spencer, Samuel, Charlie, and Abby. Charlie was doing his Zoolander face, I'm not sure the kids knew what that meant.

Abby exploring the fort.

Cutting Spencers hair - it was unruly! He didn't want to get his hair cut and kept avoiding the issue until I told him I could cut his hair to look like Brad's, then he was suddenly willing. Isn't that cute?

Brad got sick and slept in the recliner one night. Have I explained the cuteness of Chewy yet?

The one event I'm especially sad we didn't get pictures from was New Year's Eve. The whole Carn gang went to the church building and we played reverse hide and go seek and kickball. We had a blast... Brook put some pictures from the event up on her Christmas post. The one picture missing is from when we hid in the women's bathroom stall - that was the best spot.