Our Christmas

After our Christmas Eve service, we headed back home so excited to begin our Christmas festivities!!Our little family's tradition is to have lots of fun snacks, read the Christmas story, and open 1 gift apiece before going to bed...well,the kids go to bed, the parents stay up way to late, and scurry to get all the last minute Christmas preparations done!! In our case, it involved packing for a week long vacation to the Grandparents homes too! We were wanting to leave right after our Christmas day church service, to drive the 2and1/2 hours to Grampie and Grammie Cameron's place, where all the cousins were waiting for us to have Christmas  dinner there.

Back to Christmas Eve.....

While the rest of us were listening to the Christmas story being read, Elin was checking out the treats.

                                       And was very excited over her discoveries!!

                                              Excited girls listening patiently!!

                                           Elin's collection is getting larger..

                                                         now the gifts!

                                 we even had some special visitors come! In lieu of our own family relations, Dale and Brenda Snowdon, a couple from our church came and were the happy Grandparents to see the girls play with their gifts much to the delight of the girls!( and Ryan and I as well)

                                            Eva falling asleep on "Grampa Dale" with her new Elmo

                                                   Hours later, all the Christmas Sacks are all lined up, awaiting the Christmas morning rush!! Our Family 's version of stockings...I guess it has to do with more room for treats!!

                                                 Christmas Day has arrived!!

                                                      and the gifts have begun!!

                                                     Elin;s sack was filled with various baby snacks that she thoroughly enjoyed !!

                                           So after Church, and that long drive, which was very pleasant actually due to 4 sleepy girls, tired from their late night and early morning, we started our Christmas vacation !! Here are Grammie and Uncle T.J. getting the turkey dinner started.

                                                      Grampie with the gravy

                                             Eve, hungrily awaiting the feast!!

                              After we ate it was present time! All the cousins lined themselves up for an impromptu concert! It was so very cute!

                                            Elin sporting a new skirt.

                                               The cousins singing happy birthday to Jesus

                                     Eating the "birthday cake"

                                                   Christmas pictures of all the kids, minus the Nortcliffes ..we missed them!

                                           The next day we got down to the business of celebrating another party..Penelope's ! She had chosen a snake theme, so the kids all were busily  crafting their own neck tie snake pets!

                                               And making pipe cleaner snakes

                                                  While we were there Elin took it upon herself many times to scare her mother by climbing Grammie's big staircase.She was so proud of herself too.

                                                Elin's most favorite person in the world to snuggle next to me, is Grammie...actually Grammie might be the favorite...I just prefer no to think that hard about it. So while we were visiting, The usual sight would be to see the 2 of them together, and Grammie would usually be getting smothered by slobbery baby kisses.

                                                     Such a happy baby!

                                                        Now amidst the snuggling there were also tickling sessions !

                                                         More snuggling

                                  .

                                                          The biggest cousins hanging out

  On our third day there, Grammie got out her huge totes filled with dress up clothes, and the girls had the time of their lives pretending...well not just the girls!!!

                                                       We all headed out on a big walk later on in the afternoon

                              We went up the hill past Mommy and Daddy's house, and when we got to the top,we could see for miles.

                                            Eva's snow tasting skills were exercised all afternoon!

                                             The trip home. Penelope was snuggling Elin close in the sled

                                                Grampie had Leila

                                        When we got back, all the little ones (and some big ones) started to build a huge snowman. Everyone was out front of the house, when I noticed Elle was missing. I went around back of the house, to find her busily making her own little snowman. Grammie had noticed too, and went to get her some accessories to dress it up.

                                                                    Proud and very happy Elle!!