Merry Christmas from the Bruns-Theurer Family

Santa has been good to the Bruns-Theurer family!

After my parents spent endless hours flying and hanging out at airports, they safely arrived to Austin on Christmas Eve.  There were several factors that affected the flight--they departed STL late, they stopped in Tulsa as the airport was closing due to snow & picked up several new passengers, the layover airport in Houston had a power outage. . .Matt was flying from Madison, WI where there was freezing rain and he connected in Minneapolis where feet of snow were falling yet his flight went like clockwork.  Bruns Family United!  We were too tired to decorate the tree by the time everyone arrived so we went to bed instead.

Ellie wore her very fashionable fuzzy peppermint jammies to greet Santa

Come morning, there is mass and monkey bread.  Yum!  Then the music comes on and the tree is decorated.  Ellie Bear slept through all of this but the furbabies were really excited.

There was a cat in the tree.

There was a cat under the tree.

There was a dog trying to eat the tree.

All 3 wanted to get into the SAME present--one of Ellie's

My parents took the photos of all of us opening presents so they have those on their camera.  I couldn't move around a whole lot due to my back so it was up to Andrew & Matt to hand out the gifts.  My brother thought we all needed unique and Wisconsin-specific gifts--Cheese!  He brought us all specialty cheeses and actually carried them onto the plane and then hid them in the fridge.  His Target plastic bags made impressive gift wrap.  Sorry, Matt, I just had to tease you :-)

We enjoyed a nice dinner using our china dishes for the second time ever.  We broke out the really cheap 12-person set of china that we purchased for a total of $50.  So cheap that I put those puppies in the dishwasher and they still look great.  We are really fancy in at the Bruns-Theurer household.  Andrew smoked a tasty brisket, but the fire went out part of the way.  He then completed the meal in the oven and it turned out perfectly.  We had sweet potatoes, rolls, and green bean casseroles.  Fortunately, I had made these at Dream Dinners and froze them.  My mother was able to do the rest of the work since I couldn't bend down to use the oven.  Also, I was smart and made the cupcakes with homemade vanilla buttercream icing earlier in the week.  Well, that was maybe not so smart since Andrew and I ate half of them before Christmas arrived.

Well, since my parents have the Ellie pics of her presents, I thought I would entertain you with a photo of Tama sitting on her homemade blanky while getting high on her homemade kitty-nip pillow.

Tune in next time for the story of Ellie's Baptism and Andrew playing the good Samaritan and getting a dog bit in return.  Don't fret you rubberneckers!  I got pictures.