christmas with the price family

we had a lovely christmas here in ankara and hope you did too, wherever you are!  

the festivities began on christmas eve when ben and i loaded up the cr-v with lots of goodies and headed to the price's for an evening of spirits and cheese fondue. it was a wonderful & relaxing way to welcome christmas.  and of course, julianne and i retired well before the boys, who played video games until the early morning.  

the next morning kathryn woke her mom up at half past six.  i joined them at 7 and caught the end of breakfast.  

she was as cute as ever in her christmas pj's!  on the bottom, they read 'merry christmas kathyn aylin.'  

we spent the morning snuggling with bunnies and having a tea party

after a little coffee it was time to open presents.  kathyn helped, of course!

lincoln was quite pleased with his bounty.

and kathryn was thrilled to discover that bubbles do indeed exist outside of gymboree.

we enjoyed a mid-morning brunch: adam prepared a delicious mexican strata using his mom's recipe, and we washed it down with mimosas... yum!

after all that food & alllll those presents, kathryn was ready for a break, which involved watching mickey mouse with her dad...

...and her uncle ben.

then it was time for more presents.  i'm pretty sure, from the look of sheer delight on her face upon opening it, that the baby doll was her favorite gift (she continuously squealed 'beebee! beebee! beebee!' as her dad removed it from the packaging).

she carried her around for quite a while, and gave her lots of kisses.  too cute!

meanwhile, lincoln was a bit overwhelmed by all the christmas fun and had to take a nap.

kathryn helped us open presents, and got a few more of her own

we spent the day relaxing and playing with kathryn's new toys until it was time to prepare our christmas feast, which included a beautiful christmas cake prepared by adam & julianne.  

cheers to spending the holidays with good friends!

merry christmas to all from ankara- we hope you enjoyed yours as much as we did ours.