Orlando Magic

Guys, I have terrible news: it is cold in Michigan. Warren and I spent most of the day on our couch cocooned under two feet of blankets remembering the good ol' days (i.e. last week) in sunny, gorgeous Florida hanging out with my sister and her family. "Remember how I went swimming on Christmas day?" Warren said wistfully as he burrowed deeper into our nest. I nearly wept as I stared out at the gray Michigan sky spiked with barren treetops. Gone are the T-shirts and swimming pools, the 80 degrees and blue skies. Woe are we, indeed. The good news is, at least we can relive the magic through our photos...

Before we left cold Michigan, we experienced the extravagance that is the Wayne County light fest. I'm pretty sure we're going to need those dinosaurs cavorting across our front lawn next year.

Jana, Tim, and I were talking about the thick and thin of bygone years and realized that I've spent nearly a decade of Christmases with them. Visiting them is one of my favorite things to do each year and I'm so glad that I could witness the uber cuteness of Cameron peeking out to see what Santa brought.

If you know Santa, then you know that he likes to keep it real. That's probably why he brought Warren a this little treat for our forays into Detroit. Warren is sure to fit right in!

I love kids at Christmas. The look of sheer anticipation just before ripping the paper off the gifts is just plain awesome. So is Cameron in his Batman/knight outfit, which he wore for pretty much the whole week.

Every Christmas morning I make glazed donuts/scones and every year something goes wrong: donuts are burnt beyond recognition, or the insides are so doughy you can hardly eat them. But this year, the donuts turned out perfectly golden--a true Christmas miracle.

As aunts and uncles, we proudly exercise the privilege of giving the loudest, most obnoxious gifts--basically, the things parents hate but kids love; hence, the boxing set. Hours of entertainment.

Jana gave us the gift that keeps on giving: two tickets to the Holy Land Experience, a Christian theme park that is so strange and wonderful that it can only be summed up in a single photo:

We searched for manatees at a local state park. While we only saw a few, I did manage to teach the twins the ins and outs of posing like an Asian tourist. I was particularly pleased with their cris-crossed peace signs.

We also spread the homemade pizza love and turned Jana's kitchen into a makeshift pizzeria.

Warren spent a lot of time building towers with Cameron (sky rise apartments for his zu zu pets) and knocking them down. I dare you to find a cuter kid than this:

We hung out with my aunt and cousin watching the Notre Dame/FSU marching bands duel in a park. Those guys below, the super tall ones, are the Notre Dame Guards. The only requirement seems to be height--they must be 6 feet 2 inches exactly so that when they don their hats, they are an even 7 feet. Plus they wear skirts, I mean, kilts.

The thing about Florida is that it relishes in crazy, which is probably why we love it. For instance, where else can you watch a series of increasingly poisonous snakes be "milked"? Before the venom milking, we held a variety of creepy crawlers. As you can see, the kids had no fear.