More Christmas in PA (catch-up)

I really don't remember what we did on the Monday after the Christmas concert so I went over to my sister Carly's blog to see what she had and her comment was that she couldn't remember either!  Oh my, I know that Kimi and Kelly probably came over with their kids and that we probably ate some of those Christmas concert leftovers but other than that, I've got nothing!  At some point Jay was feeding Emily some of a donut and we captured the moment on camera:

Jay is over a year older than Emily but they are pretty comparable in weight, Jay is a peanut

Emily may also be bigger because she eats a lot, even stealing a donut from little Jay

It looks like Jay is concentrating pretty hard

Monday evening Grandma and Grandpa had arranged for all of the family to gather at Mimi's house for soup and sandwiches.  Emily ate a ton of the tomato tortellini soup that Mimi made.  It was great to catch up with cousins and fun to watch my girls interact with my cousin Katie's son Wyeth.

TUESDAY was New year's eve!  Grandma and Grandpa came in the morning to give out their Christmas gifts to the kids.  They got all of the grandkids matching outifts!  We thought it would be a great opportunity to get a picture.  As you can see below, our timing was a little off.

Haley and Kelsey helped pass the gifts out

All ready to open their gifts

Calla, Kelsey and Haley put their matching shirts on right away

We got a couple good pictures of the three oldest

They are getting too big!

We've got four out of the eight crying

It went a little better when we put Grandma and grandpa in there too

We thought they were hungry so we fed them crackers.  

The kids took naps in the afternoon while we prepared for our big evening meal.  We celebrated our 'Christmas dinner' on New Year's Eve and then after the kids went to bed, the adults exchanged gifts.  Mimi made a delicious meal of ham, potatoes, and a bunch of sides.  Kelly brought corn casserole, Kimi brought a salad, and Rin brought a green bean casserole.  We all ate and then hung out for a while until the kids went to bed.  In the meantime we attempted another photo shoot.  

This is the best one we got of the girls, of Haley at least

a family pic

Our family dinner

Maya was taking a nap so Clark held a doll to represent her

At least we tried

Calla, Kelsey, and Haley with a cheesey smile

It was a pretty good idea to open gifts without the kids!  It went a lot smoother and faster without them.  After we exchanged gifts we played a bunch of games until midnight when we went downstairs to watch the ball drop in Times Square (on the TV of course).  Then we came back upstairs and played more games.  It was a great way to start 2014.

On New Year's day we pretended it was Christmas day.  The Fentons, Mountzs, and Iyas came over and we all had Christmas breakfast and then all of the kids exchanged gifts and opened gifts from Mimi and Pops.  We got a group shot before we started opening gifts.  This was actually one of our more successful photo shoots.  I guess we could hold the present opening over their heads.

Pops reading the Christmas story before we started

Emily did keep trying to escape

From left to right: Ellie, Jay, Emily, Haley, Calla, Kelsey, Maya, (Aunt Kelly), and Clark

Emily opening a gift

Haley with one of her favorite gifts, a cd from Aunt Kelly

Opening gifts

Emily got a doll from Mimi, she loves it

Aunt Carly got Emy a backpack with her name on it

Ellie and Emy with their backpacks

One of the gifts from Mimi was a basket for Haley to put all of her dress-ups in, she tried it out herself first.

Emily playing with her doll

We spent the rest of Tuesday playing with our new presents, the kids at least.  Mom made traditional pork and sauerkraut for dinner alongside some of the leftover ham from the night before.  Uncle Jonathan had to take off just after our meal so he could catch his plane back to Chicago.  Fortunately he left Carly and the kids behind to hang out for a couple more days.  In the evening we put the kids to bed and played more games!

Our annual Christmas concert

Sunday morning we all slept in quite a bit so we decided to just go to the second service.  Mom and Dad told me the young adult sunday school class was just going to be discussing the new church building project so I didn't feel like we were missing anything by skipping out on that.  The girls did well in nursery, one of the volunteers gave me an especially good report on Emily.  Well, she just thought she was cute, I guess that doesn't mean she behaved herself.  After church we came home and the Brust family, who had only gone to the first service, already had pizza ordered for lunch!  We ate and then put the girls to bed.  They needed to take especially long naps because we had the annual Christmas concert in the evening.  While the kids napped the rest of us prepared food and figured out what we were going to do for the concert.  Yeah, hard to believe but a lot of the program is actually selected, rehearsed, and performed on the same day!  Around 5:30 guests arrived and we ate heavy oer d'oeurves and then had our concert and then had dessert after the concert.  The girls did pretty well during the concert.  Haley did not want to perform anything until cousin Kelsey was doing a dance routine and then she randomly joined in.  After the concert we exchanged gifts with our family friend Linda.  Haley helped me open mine but soon realized it was not for her when she saw that it was a table runner.  After everyone left we cleaned up and then played some games before bed.

Emy at the concert, her hair kind of looks funny in this picture.  

David and I singing while Haley eats a cracker

Emy thinking through the meaning of Christmas

Ready to start the concert.  From left to right: Calla, Kelsey, Haley, Ellie, Emy, and Jay.  You can see Maya's feet in the background and Clark was somewhere!

The trumpet number was a favorite, not sure why Haley is standing up...

You can tell this is towards the end of the concert, things are starting to unravel

The kids were allowed to participate during the Christmas carol sing at the end

Haley was supposed to sing the doxology with us...fail.

All of us singing

Haley had a great time

Christmas in PA part 1

THURSDAY morning, the day after Christmas, we all slept in from our long Christmas day of traveling.  When we finally woke up and looked out the window we saw that it had snowed sometime in the morning after we had arrived!  David's words when he saw the snow were, "Praise the Lord!"  He had really been wanting to see some snow.  We fed the girls breakfast and then our first order of business was to bundle up and go out into the snow.  Haley saw snow last year when we were up in PA for Christmas but Emy was still just a baby then so she had never really experienced it.  The girls do have snowsuits but somehow I left them in Texas, as if we will ever use them there.  I dressed them in two pairs of pants and their winter coats instead.  Haley wore her boots and Emily wore regular shoes with plastic bags around her feet.  We had mittens for Haley but Emily wore socks on her hands, haha.  David had come prepared for snow so he put on his stuff and took the girls outside.  I only stayed out long enough to grab some pictures and show the girls how to eat snow.  Emily ended up coming in soon too, she wasn't a huge fan of the sock gloves and soon she had taken them off and then her hands got cold.  Here are a couples shots of the fun in the snow:

Mimi and Emy

Daddy and Haley made this snowman together

It was a baby snowman

Eating the snow

Emy was not impressed

After some fun in the snow we came inside and had some fun with our cousins!  The Fentons and Mountz cousins braved the snow to pay us a visit.  Haley did ask where the Brust cousins were a couple times but we told her they were coming later (they arrived on Saturday).  It was great to catch up with Kelly and Kimi while the cousins played.  In the afternoon we did our laundry and the girls took good naps.  For lunch Mom pulled out the Christmas dinner leftovers so we could try and make up for our own 7 Eleven Christmas dinner.  It was all a distant memory after a couple bites in.  I can't remember what she did for dinner but I do remember thinking that I would have just had more Christmas dinner leftovers again!  Corinne and Daniel came by at some point, I think they had dinner with us actually.  I have this picture of us playing Rummikub and I'm pretty sure it was that night!

 

Catching up with cousin Ellie and Maya

FRIDAY I think Kelly and Kimi came over again.  Aunt Rin came by sometime after lunch because David and I were going to go on a date to see the movie the Hobbit and then get dinner.  David had arranged for her to baby-sit while we were gone.  I was planning on putting the girls down for naps and then leaving but the girls really gave me the run around with naptime and Aunt Rin ended up with Emily wide awake.  I can't remember if she even ended up going down or not.  Anyways, David and I went to a 2:45 showing of the Hobbit and the place was PACKED.  I don't know why the whole world decided to go see that movie on a Friday afternoon after it had been released for weeks but whatevs whole world.  Dave and I didn't even end up getting to sit together and Dave had an awful seat in the front.  We're planning on renting it when it comes out on Redbox so we can try and relive the moment.  As stinky as the movie situation was, our dinner was amazing.  Mom had recommend this little restaurant a couple miles from the movie theater called Georgiano's and it made everything worth it.  David and I both ordered steaks and Dave was a fancy one that they prepared tableside.  I got chocolate cake for dessert and I can't remember what David got, I just remember it was something I wouldn't choose, haha.  We brought some chocolate cake home for Corinne (the piece was huge) and then she gave us the run-down on her day.  I think she said the girls did well, I do remember that she had given them baths and big bowls of ice cream for snack before bed.  She must be in the race for favorite aunt because those are definitely two of their favorite things.  We thanked her and Daniel who had ended up coming to Mom's and keeping her company at the end.

Friday morning Pops showed Haley and Clark the train.  Emily watched from a distance

Emily and Ellie playing together

SATURDAY the Brusts arrived!  Well, they didn't arrive until lunchtime but I don't really remember what we did in the morning so we'll just start there.  The girls were eating their sandwiches and macaroni and cheese when they pulled in.  I let Haley stay up a little longer before putting her down for a nap so she could play with Calla and Kelsey for a little bit, she just adores her older cousins.  Calla taught us all a game she had gotten for Christmas called 'Tenzies.'  It's a fun one, a humbling one too.  You can just as easy lose to a six year old as to an adult...repeatedly.  We laid low for most of the day, helping the Brusts recover from their road trip and preparing for the busy weekend ahead.  More on that weekend in my next post! 

Cousins together on the couch, watching the Ipad  I think.

Aunt Carly = the Pied Piper

Jay got this game for Christmas and Aunt Carly was playing it with everyone.  It looks like she could easily have five kids, and have on on the way!