I can’t believe we’re well on our way to February (!!!) and I’m just now getting this out. We tend to have busy holidays around here; we were in three states in the span of one week! I just realized I got the post about last Christmas–Maelle’s first!–out just two weeks into January. How did I do that?!
We spent almost every waking hour with Andrew’s family in the days on and after Christmas, then drove eight hours to DC to see my parents before flying to Florida for our second–now annual–Captiva trip!
We hosted our annual Christmas Eve party, although it was smaller than usual. We limited it to Andrew’s family and one other family with whom we spend a lot of time: the Nyes. Honestly, after adding three new grandkids (and one more on the way!) in the last year and a half, the house is getting more and more full with each passing year. At least this year we had plenty of toys for the kids to play with…
Maelle and Nora were twinsies for the evening:
Andrew, Maelle and I ended up spending the night at the Layers’ house to join in the fun. The more, the merrier, right?
Christmas morning was just as chaotic as I imagined it would be; opening stockings and presents for 13, orchestrating a hot breakfast and managing all the little ones’ energy levels and emotions is no small task. Andrew’s sister, Carolyn, made delicious cinnamon rolls and we sped things up a bit by opening a few of the kids’ presents out of order.
Forgive the blurry photo; it’s the only one of us in our Hanna jams! I fell in love with Hanna Andersson jammies this year, and got us all the plaid set.
I wish I’d taken a photo of the living room, covered with discarded wrapping paper, piles of presents and 13 warm bodies spilling off couches and onto the floor…but it was all I could do to watch everyone unwrap their gifts, keep track of my daughter and make sure I had a gift when it was my turn again. While I enjoy seeing everyone unwrap their gifts, I realized this year that I’m ready to start having our own Christmas morning traditions at our own house, now that we’re a little family.
We ended up spending another night there–by late afternoon I realized we lacked the inertia to pack anything up to go home–and the snow was picking up. We enjoyed our usual roast beef dinner, stayed up playing games and hoped we’d wake up to a snowy day.
We certainly did wake up to snow! Andrew’s dad was soon out clearing the driveway, and some of us ended up outside to play.
Maelle loves the snow, her daddy, and to being tossed up in the air! We did some sledding and playing with her cousins before coming inside to dry off and warm up.
We finally made it home and slept in our own beds, although we tend to spend a lot of time at my in-laws’ house during any holiday, especially when the Johnsons (Andrew’s sister) visit. Here I am in my new sweatshirt I got for Christmas that I mentioned in this post, and Maelle in a new outfit as well. (The pants are actually from the boys’ section, but I thought they were SO CUTE.)
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