Pre-Christmas Family Festivities

a post by Jenni {aka Mom}

It's not even Christmas Eve and it seems like we've already had a bunch of Christmas celebrations! My husband likes to draw it out by allowing the boys to open just one gift on Christmas day, and the rest one a day in the days leading up to Christmas. We WOULD have started tomorrow BUT we thought that two of the gifts (one for Rooster and one for Bird) would come in especially handy while family was in town so we let them open those on Monday! They both received new cameras - we thought we might end up with more good photos and videos while family is in town. We did, but we also ended up with many long, detailed video tours of Lego villages as well as gads of photos of Lego creations, army men formations, and the cats! LOL

My husband and I were just reflecting on how it gives us such insight into their little worlds, and lets us catch a glimpse of life from their perspective. We really enjoy that!

 

Nana and Grandpa arrived Monday evening and visited with us through Tuesday evening. Tuesday my aunt and uncle joined them in town, and that evening we enjoyed a wonderful party with all of them as well as my other aunt and my grandmother. The party culminated in an UNO marathon - Aunt Ginny had won EVERY round, and then Bo was the one to FINALLY beat her in the final round. The boys say they'll be practicing for next time!

Tuesday we also enjoyed an epic game of miniature golf in which Bo defeated me by one stroke (Gah!! It was that one hole with all those stinking little hills that got me!). 

Oh, and for the party Nana picked up gourmet cupcakes from this cute little shop in downtown Harrisonburg - they were SO GOOD!

Unfortunately Nana and Grandpa had to leave on Wednesday since Grandpa was having surgery today. Thankfully his surgery went smoothly today, though he has a long and painful recovery ahead of him. We sure missed them tonight, though!

This evening was Aunt Ginny's annual Christmas party, and we joined a myriad of cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends down at her newly remodeled home. She's been working on it a long time, doing most of the work herself, and it is looking FANTASTIC. The food was great, as usual. 

I was especially excited to see my cousin Sarah and her new baby girl Skyla - who's a whole 10 months old now! They live out in California, so this was my first time meeting the sweet little one. Is it bad that one of my favorite parts of the party every year is playing with the little girls? ;-) I love my boys, but I also love spoiling my little cousins. All three of those baby girls are adorable and have the sweetest little personalities.

We've really enjoyed visiting everyone so far. We're definitely looking forward to the rest of the week, and possibly even more visits with the other side of the family tree during the following week.