Because we love Christmas (and because I’m a complete nerd), theVandermarks.com has been “decorated” for the Holidays!  We wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and best wishes for whatever holidays you and your family celebrate.

Tags: Christmas, geek, website

Happy New Year to all! We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas.

Lots of new pictures have been added to the Photo Gallery. Finishing out the 2007 Family album are some new photos in the Nov-Dec 2007 album, including a few in early December that were hiding on one of our digital cameras of Z & A enjoying an early Christmas present from Papa and Grandma Pat – a new play table. Also included are a gift of Buzz and Woody from Debbie and fun for the whole family with wooden blocks from Grandpa Dan and Grandma Marilyn.

Debbie and I took the boys to visit Santa. They were really excited about Santa – right up until it was time to actually meet him. Alex had a death grip on me, while Zach was wary of this strange man and found that exploring the area was more interesting. Debbie captured a picture of a struggle to keep the boys still enough to get that split-second portrait. Once we left, they got excited about Santa again. What can you do?

In the Christmas 2007 album, we have pictures from our mid-December trip to celebrate Christmas with family and friends in Chicago – we had such a great time visiting everyone! For Christmas, we opened all our family gifts on the 23rd so we could take our time and enjoy everything with Cole. On Christmas Eve, we made the trek up to Grandma Pat and Papa’s house and spent the day with them; we also were invited to invade the Aberle’s holiday celebration to spend a little time with them.

Christmas Day brought a visit from Santa (fortunately for the boys, while they were still sleeping) and a fantastic meal with some dishes that have become holiday traditions for us – a roast duck with apple and prune stuffing that is to die for, the Vandermark traditional Green Death (lime Jello salad with cream cheese and pears – yum!), and a new butternut squash risotto that was a lot of work but was wonderful with the duck.

Tags: Alex, Christmas, family outing, holiday, Zach

As predicted, the Vandermarks and Belouseks went a little crazy with the cameras at Christmas.  It didn’t help that we had three cameras going at various points.  We actually had about 600 photos between the three!  I did manage to whittle it down to a much more reasonable number – still a lot, but when you consider what I started with, I think I did pretty good. Check them out in the Christmas 2006 album.

Zach and Alex had a lot of fun with all the new things to see and play with.  And we all had fun celebrating that first Christmas with them.  However, I have to say that for the first time ever, I was happy to take the tree down this year.  The boys were just fascinated with it, always wanting to put the branches, ornaments, and lights right into their mouths.

Other new photos have been posted in the newly-created Jan-Feb 2007 album and a couple cute ones from the last days of 2006 (my favorite is the one of Alex sleeping on Eeyore).

Tags: Belouseks, Christmas, holiday