Christmas Eve

We started our Christmas Eve day with taking food to the food bank as a family and then taking a walk along the Olympic Discovery Trail. It was soooo COLD but very beautiful! Since we have changed our Christmas Eve tradition of being with the cousins in Olympia (to another date), we had to start making new traditions for this day. It felt a little lonely UNTIL...

Grandma and Grandpa came! YEAH! Then it felt more festive!

We told the kids they needed to get dressed up for church and Gianna took it literally and went to her "dress up" basket and pulled out the most beautiful Christmas Princess dress she could find! Never mind that I had 3 different Christmas outfits for her!

We had Christmas Eve dinner by candlelight...Dom's idea!

Dominic made a sleigh just like Santa!

Dom and G in their new, just opened pjs.

Snuggling with Grandpa

Setting out their Santa snack and reindeer treat!

We always read The Night Before Christmas before going to bed.

Olympia Friends Santa Breakfast

BFFs...we started a tradition of having a Santa Breakfast for our kids. This year was the best! Most of the kids were at the PERFECT age...all the wonder and amazement on their faces was captured!

All the kids scrambling to see Santa...he is outside, just flew in on a jet! Last year he rode in on a fire truck!

Ab and two of her beautiful kids

Santa was cracking Logan up!

Dom was so excited to sit on Santa's lap

Anna did not really want to sit with Santa unless Mommy was with her! She did end up taking the present though!

Gianna wanted me to "go with her"

Nick did a great job

The Kissel Family smiling for their mommy

I think this picture has all of the kids...we took about 10 pictures since kids kept crawling in and out!

It was also Zach's birthday so we ended the party with a birthday party for him!

Some of the kids eating cake and ice cream...the others were off playing!

Such a great time together!

Starting off the weekend...

Friday night, 10:15 pm, finally got the kids settled down and into bed, after a wild evening at Grandma and Grandpa's. I had just prayed with them, kissed them, when I heard a gasp downstairs. I ran down and it was TONI AND JARED and the BOYS, earlier than we expected, from Wenatchee!YEAH YEAH YEAH, we have missed them so much this last month and a half. A minute later I hear 3 sets of little feet pounding down the stairs after me...needless to say, 11:00 pm was the bedtime this night!

Pure joy at being together

Cash loved Nick's curls

Gianna can't get enough of Baby Cash!

Cousins Christmas

All the cousins and their spouses...

all the "little cousins"

The Story: Each Christmas Eve the guys have some sort of tournament in the morning. For the past 2 years it has been a golf tournament...the two sides of the family pitted against each other. Of course my hubby LOVES to place bets on everything and anything and sadly-he lost! So my brothers and Vinny had to jump into the lake as the result to losing the bet! FREEZING!!! Here they are in the WARM house getting ready to run down (and if you have been to our lake lots, you know it is a pretty long run down and up!)

The Run Down...at least they are smiling!

Jumping in...where is Dan going?

Warming up in the hot tub after the lake

All the guys in the pic below were the winners of the tournament!

Hanging out

Kidding around with Uncle Dan

G was so happy to be with her Auntie Toni

The kids opened gifts first since they got a present from EVERYONE! All the kids were so blessed with the amount of gifts and thoughtfulness from everyone!

Nick was so excited to get hiking boots from Grandma and Grandpa. He and Vinny go on a lot of hikes and he had outgrown his old pair.

Nick quickly organized all of his loot, and took it to a place where there was less chaos!

This picture of the floor just amazes me-the amount of gifts!

A funny gift to my dad before he opened his real gift!

A re-gift from last year. This was a picture of Vinny that we had hung at his 40th surprise party and now it is making the rounds each year at the Christmas gift exchange!

And here we have "Law and Order" our mom's nicknames!

Dominic's Nutcracker Art

Once again, the website artprojectsforkids.org gave us a great guide to drawing step by step. Dominic drew this picture just by following 6 steps. He even added some parts of his own. Pretty great for a 5 year old!

Treats for the Birds

Today we read the story Night Tree by Eve Bunting and then made little treats to hang from the trees for the birds. I found this idea on the Crafty Crow blog.

Kinzley making her bird treat.

Dom working on his

Even Bjorn made one!

The finished products

Kinzley made a book about bird food, and then she read it to her dad when he picked her up!

Dom wanted to write the sentences himself for his book.

Before nap we read Christmas stories by "tree-light." They had such a great time!