thomson family: the Christmas posts: the days before

Christmas was a blast. we headed out to pense, sk., the teeny tiny town where brian grew up. we left the morning after brian wrote his last exam. we had talked about leaving when ollie woke up for his morning feeding, which was usually around 5:00 or 5:30. that morning, i first heard him at 3:30! i knew it was way too early, so i put him off for a bit, but when i got out of bed at 4:30, brian got up too. we were on the road by 4:30 and although it was a little insane, it was awesome. even with the time difference, we pulled into town at 1:30 in the afternoon. we went to the pense school to see brians mom and she was so excited to show ollie off.

it was really nice to arrive so early (on the 19th). i had purchased and wrapped all the gifts before we left, so we had lots of time to just relax and hang out with family. there was delicious food to be eaten, games to be played and an ollie to snuggle all day long. he loved having grandma's attention and learning to navigate his new surroundings. like i mentioned before, he quickly learned to climb the stairs and that became his favourite thing to do.

and now, for some pictures! because that's what you really came for, right? i took a ton of pictures at Christmas, which is why i decided to split up the posts. so here's the "before Christmas" photos!

the pictures of ollie in the tiny wooden chair are pretty special. brians late grandpa finken was a carpenter. one Christmas, grandpa finken made a chair like the one below for each of his grandchilden. what a special keepsake!