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…

Christmas Morning

There’s a rule in our house that children do not get up before 7 AM.  So far, the kids have even abided by this rule on Christmas morning, much to our surprise.  I was still dozing in bed when Keith nudged me, told me the kids were stirring, and we waited for them to run to our bedroom…which they do every morning!

This morning, though, they didn’t come to our room.  Keith & I found them in the living room staring at the tree!  I don’t put their presents under the tree until they’re in bed on Christmas Eve, so they were admiring all the packages.

We took them to the front hall to see if Santa had eaten the milk & cookies we’d left out the night before.  He had, and he’d also left them a pretty special present…

Tidmouth Sheds!  Santa also left a mine tunnel (that he bought used and half-price on ebay) and a few new Thomas and Chuggington trains.

They were so excited that Christmas morning could have ended right here.  They had very little interest in opening stockings or other presents.  Yet somehow, we as parents feel compelled to give them more ;)

Keith then read the Christmas story from Luke 2.  It’s important to us to do that before opening presents, as THAT’S what Christmas is all about! 

We took the stockings (see Jensyn’s beautiful new stocking, handmade by Grandma P?) and sat in the living room to see what we could find inside.  Santa brought dollar store motorcycles, one Hot Wheel car for each boy, Smarties, little plastic cars filled with candy, National Geographic Kids magazines (for those who follow MoneySavingMom.com, Santa likes the online deals, ha!), M&Ms, new toothbrushes & toothpaste, and Gerber Puffs (for Jensyn)

 

We give each child three presents, and then I had each boy pick out a present for the other brother.  The boys also bought an O-ball rattle for Jensyn.

Alex got:
~ Angry Birds playset (generic one, for $10 from a random Hong Kong website)
~ Hot Wheels firehouse playset
~ Vee set (for Chuggington trains)
~ double-decker bus from Cars 2 (I *love* his reaction!)

Max got:
~ soccer ball (free from saving cereal box points)
~ K’nex Elmo set
~ Wedgits
~ Hot Wheels car transporter

Jensyn got:

~ cloth diaper covers
~ 2 new outfits (uh, these were new with tags but I just pulled them out of her closet and wrapped them…she has EVERYTHING she needs!)
~ big girl car seat
~ o ball

After we cleaned up the Christmas morning aftermath, we had cinnamon roll bread and yogurt.  We attended church, came home to give Jensyn & Max a nap, and then headed to Grandma & Papa’s house for the rest of the day…but that’s another post!

Candy Cane tot school

Max is 24 months; Alex is (days away from…) 4 years old.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we read candy cane stories and worked on our candy cane mini tot pack.  Here are some pictures of our fun!

The best part, to me, is that Alex is able to tell everyone exactly what a candy cane represents.  I love knowing that, more and more each year, he’s catching on to the true meaning of Christmas!

Dot marker/magnet page

 

Count & Match puzzle cards

 

Circle what’s different

 

Max wanted to try this page, so Mommy helped him find which one was different.  Max scribbled on the correct picture! ;)

shadow matching (Alex wouldn’t do this, but it’s one of Max’s favorites…)

 

Alex cut out his own pieces for his color-sorting page; Mama cut out the pictures for Max.

  

This was Max’s first time using a glue stick.  He was so proud of himself for correctly sorting and gluing all of the pieces!

 

    

Oh, Max…you can’t write…yet.  That’s not going to stop you from trying, though!  Max watched so carefully as Alex traced his letters.  Afterwards, Max “traced” the letters with so-so results. 

  

We also spent a day at Grandma and Grandpa S’s house.  She made brownies, and the boys helped her decorate them with green frosting and turn them into Christmas trees with pretzel stick tree trunks.  Thanks, Grandma!