A Jean Team Christmas

This year was the first Christmas that the Jean Team spent in South Carolina...something about a 14 hour drive with 2 dogs, 1 toddler, and a pregnant Mommy (but a super-awesome Daddy) just wasn't too appealing to us. Luckily, Ninny and Grandaddy Jean came down to help us celebrate. Our holiday was busy but much enjoyed!

On Christmas Eve, Phil and I had our first attempt at making the traditional Sattelmeyer Family cavatelli by ourselves. This italian dish has been made by my Dad (with "help" from the three kids) for many many years on Christmas Eve; it is a tradition passed down to us from when my Dad was a kid and helped his grandmother make it. While the cavatelli were certainly edible, they were lacking the 60 years of love and expertise that Grandpa Sattelmeyer adds to the dish. However, they tasted pretty good to our hungry family of Jeans. All of the Jeans pitched in to help roll the dough before boiling...this is the most fun part of making this dish. As kids, we used to make fun of whoever was the worst "roller". It was usually David. :) While in our "church clothes", we tried to take a Jean Team Christmas photo. You can see that we were not very successful. Too many squirmy wormies in the family.
On Christmas morning, the first thing that Avery saw sitting under the tree was the red Radio Flyer wagon from Ninny and Grandaddy. The wagon has 2 individual seats and seatbelts...perfect for an active toddler! He was quick to want to ride in it and even shared one of the seats with Kobe Dog. Let's hope he shares this well with his little brother or sister.

Christmas was certainly interesting with Avery this year. He would open a gift and then want to play with it afterwards. Opening presents was quite literally an all-day event in the Jean home. This is Chuck the Truck who I swear is a self-possessed toy who is very good at getting the dogs riled up. :)
I tried to give Avery a book to open while everyone was taking showers and getting ready for another round of present opening. He decided that he would much rather open one of the bigger gifts...which luckily was actually for him! Avery loves farm animals and keeps us entertained with mimicking the noises they make, so Mommy & Daddy bought him a Fishers Price farm. Avery played with this toy non-stop for a solid 30 minutes after Daddy and Grandaddy opened the package and set it up. He has better sustained attention than his Mommy!

Like usual, Avery enjoyed playing with Kobe Dog, Ninny & Grandaddy's 4 pound yorkie. Kobe was nice enough to share some of his toys with Avery.

After Christmas dinner, we drove to James Island's County Park to check out their Festival of Lights. Avery had a great time looking at all of the different light displays. Unfortunately, my camera couldn't pick up any of the displays well, but they were pretty cool!