Christmas, Part 3 (the PA crew arrives!)

Christmas just keeps on going.....because the PA Crew (Aunt Patty, Uncle John, Michael, and the Kowall Family) all arrived for ANOTHER Christmas dinner and presents.  It is so great to have so much fun with extended family and cousins.  The kids have so much fun playing together.

 Tyler is into EVERYTHING!

 The five of us - we haven't had a picture taken like this in years....

We used to do them fairly regularly for Grandma Catney when we were kids growing up.

Now we're all in our 30's!

 6 kiddos - very difficult to get this many kids under 6 years old looking at the camera!

I love the looks on everyone's face!

There was also a brief birthday celebration for me, but no photos.... but we did have some cake and Jon and the girls got me a few nice sweaters.

Christmas in WV

Merry Christmas from West Virginia!  Since Karen & I both wanted to celebrate Christmas with our families at our own homes, Mom & Dad hosted "Christmas Part 2" at their house a few days later and we were all able to come in and stay for the weekend.  It is always tons of fun to have everyone all together.

 Although quite possibly the smallest live Christmas tree ever, the kids were excited anyways!

 Hannah & Peyton are ready for PRESENTS!

 Uncle Daniel makes a good Santa

 Lauren & Liam aren't so sure....

 Peyton got pretend makeup in Karen's old caboodle - wonder what else Mom has stashed away in the storage space over the garage???

 Liam loved his light saber

(as did Uncle Jon, who tried it out before we wrapped it)

 

 For our entire lives, Mom has been wrapping presents in old food boxes.  

The tradition continues!!!  If you get a box of Cheerios, don't assume there are Cheerios in the box.

 The aftermath

Merry Christmas!!

Jon and I wanted to have Christmas at home with the girls this year, even though it was a "Folger Side" holiday.  So, we stayed home and invited the grandparents to join us if they wanted to.  Ron & Sally decided to come and spend the night and then we had Christmas dinner in the evening and the Ely's joined us.  It was a nice, relaxing day.  The girls got a few toys, some craft supplies, and some essentials (like clothes, for these growing girls).

 Santa came!

 If we only got the girls the presents in their stockings, they would have been fine - they were so excited to open their stockings, they weren't really into getting the presents under the tree.  It was a nice reminder that kids don't really need a lot of things to be excited and happy at Christmas.  They were thrilled to get tape, bandaids, a slinky, and colored pens (and a few other things as well)....

 I loved watching the girls work together to open their Santa gifts.

 Even Abby got some presents.

Hannah picked out the squirrel tower and was super excited to show Abby how to get the squirrels out.

 The Doc McStuffins Clinic was a big hit!

 Dinner is ready!!

(Thanks for the flowers, Aunt Rose!)

 The kids had a good time playing together.

 Lauren's PJ's say it all - this girl doesn't like to go to bed....

She is certainly our stinker!

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve, we go to a church service at our church, followed by an easy crock-pot meal.  And, I always try to get pictures of everyone dressed in their finest.  I love the girls in their "twirly" dresses.  We ended up sitting near the front at church, and the girls were really interested in the music and singing (and Lauren wanted to hold her own candle for Silent Night), but they were intrigued by our organist, who has a big white beard and maybe does look a tad like the "jolly guy up north", causing Hannah to point and whisper (loudly) - SANTA'S HERE!

 Merry Christmas!

 almost 6 years old

 3 years old

 Daddy & his girls

 One of these days I'll teach Jon how to take pictures...none of the serious pictures of me and the girls turned out...so the silly one is really the best of the ones taken....

 After church the girls got to open one present each - they opened their gifts from "Cleaning Lisa", which was a giant craft center and lots of pink paper.  The girls were in heaven and started crafting after dinner as soon as their PJ's were on!

 Their first crafts were for Santa.

 They sure did leave a lot of cookies for one guy.....

We have a tradition of celebrating Jesus' birthday on Christmas Eve with a birthday cake after dinner.  The girls helped me make and decorate the cake and it is a good reminder of why we are getting presents to begin with.  I forgot to get a picture of the "before" cake, but here is after we had some....

Delivering Cookies

Since I am 100% an absolutely full-time working mom who fancies herself able to do the things that stay-at-home moms are able to do during the day, tonight after work the girls and I filled up the wagon and walked around delivering cookies to our neighbors, since we'd done so much baking, it was only fair to share it.  We live in a neighborhood with a large number of Asian families, and it was nice to do something nice for our neighbors and try to get to know more of them.

The girls' favorite house to visit was Jack & Janice's house, an older couple across the street.  Jack was a music teacher, and they invited the girls in and they got to play all kinds of instruments...piano, organ, drum set (!!), violin, and even an accordion.  They had so much fun and it was clear they were excited to have little ones in the house (and excited about instruments).  I'll admit, I was holding my breath the whole time that they didn't break anything!