Christmas with Grandma & Papa

Christmas with Grandma & Papa’s family is often two days.  We celebrated on Christmas Day with Nana (Keith’s grandma), Grandma & Papa, and Keith’s brother and his family.  On the 26th, Uncle Jim and his kids and granddaughter joined the rest of us for brunch and presents.

Christmas Day:

Jesus’ birthday cake (with a candle for each boy to blow out…)

Jessica & Jensyn ~ the girl cousins have to stick together!

Nana (I have what should be a better picture, but someone stepped in the way of the picture…)

Opening presents…there were 5 very spoiled children! 

 

Alex’s big gift from Grandma & Papa was a LeapPad!  We’re already on our third set of batteries on January 4th, so you know he’s loving it! :)

Max’s big gift was a mini trampoline.  At first I was afraid that would be a little too much, but if you’ve met Maxwell, you know that he’s a bundle of energy.  We put it up in our playroom, and both boys LOVE it!

Little Miss got some nice gifts, too, including a few new baby dolls.  She enjoyed lots of snuggles with the ladies of the family!

Kevin & Keith give each other gag gifts each year.  This year, Kevin gave Keith a “lunch club” for work, made with packaged & microwavable food.  Keith gave Kevin an “over the hill” survival kit because Kevin turned 40 this year.

 

Too much celebrating for Kyle ~ he’s worn out! ;)

December 26th (also Alex’s 4th birthday):

Everybody did their part to make a delicious brunch of waffle casserole, hash brown casserole, ham & egg casserole, fruit, breads, bacon, and more.  It was SO yummy!

Afterwards, the kids exchanged presents with one another, and then the adults did our annual gift card exchange.  It’s always fun to see who ends up with what gift cards at the end!

Cousin Cailin always enjoys playing with Jensyn.  I don’t know if it’s because Jensyn is a girl or because Jensyn is a baby, but these two little ones enjoy each other’s company.

Keith’s cousins chipped in together to get each of our children a special gift.  Jensyn got a singing baby doll and a princess chair.  (See, our princess needed her very own royal throne!)

Our boys got a toy laptop computer, a Home Depot workbench and tools, and a McDonalds drive-thru playset.  They are completely thrilled with the new workbench, as it looks much more grown-up than their garage sale Little Tikes bench.  (Alex requested that we bring the Little Tikes bench over to Grandma & Papa’s basement; that way we had room for the new one at home.)

      

Alex had fun teaching everyone how to play the Jewel Train game on his LeapPad.  I loved seeing him all snuggled up with Uncle Jim!  Cailin loved getting a chance to try it out, too.

Before everyone headed out the door, we took a few minutes to sing Happy Birthday to our FOUR YEAR OLD.  (Where did the time go?)  I’d quickly thrown together an ice cream cake the night before.  It tipped in the freezer during the night, so it was a rather slanted ice cream cake.  Oops!  

I forgot to bring the candles, so I asked Grandma if she had anything we could use.  She disappeared downstairs for a moment, and came back with candles that spelled Alex’s name.  I’m telling ya, Grandma is prepared for EVERYTHING! ;)

Once the extended family headed out the door, we enjoyed some time to play games, hang out, and just relax together.  In the evening, the guys went to see a movie and the girls did some day-after-Christmas bargain shopping.  Now we’re stocked on wrapping paper and Christmas craft kits for next year!  (Thanks, Grandma & Papa, for feeding and entertaining the boys while we were out!)

There ya have it, Christmas 2011.  Next up, Christmas with my family…