Let the festivities begin!

Although the festivities were suppose to begin after dinner, it was the end for Aloria. She had gotten the hives the day before from I don't know what, and was still itching and little blotchy Christmas Eve, so I gave her another dose of Benedryl.
You can see the results!
Justus, on the other hand, we couldn't get to fall asleep. I let him cry in his bed for quite a while, and then finally let him open a gift and watch Winnie the Pooh, while Aloria slept on the couch.

...and she wasn't the only one!
Aaron had worked Christmas Eve, so I went up to Cali a day early with my folks and he joined us after he got off of work. He had been up since five am to get to work and then drove the four hours to my grandparents. He was zonked out as well.

Right before presents were opened my aunts decided it was a great idea to take group pictures...here are all of the second cousins. My cousin Jennifer's three (three older ones on the right), my cousin Freddie's daughter (red shoes), my cousin Devin's daughter (the four month old) and of course my two on the left. You can't really see Aloria's face, but I woke her up for this event at the erging of family, and she was not a happy camper...as I knew she wouldn't be. Justus was in still in high spirits though and antagonized her with poking and leaning on her so much that I had to move him for the next picture.
Needless to say, she went right back to sleep on the couch when we were done and didn't wake up until everyone else had already opened all of their gifts...about the time Justus went to bed (10 pm or so). What a topsy turvey evening :-)

Before the kids opened gifts, the adults had their gift exchange.
This picture is funny because my two beautiful cousins below are going the way of the liberal dark side, but both ended up with the most conservative of gifts out there...Glenn Beck's Arguing with Idiots and Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.
It was really funny!