Christmas at My Parent's

Of course, there was baby holding!  There were parties celebrating with my cousins on both sides of the family, we played many card games and family basketball games, there was cooking, and then eating.  It's the first time I've been at my parent's house for Christmas in 10 years, and I was over the moon to give my children a taste of what my Christmases were like as a child.

She's a natural!

Hannah is all about her nails lately.  She is learning to do nail art and practiced on Mimi.  See the Santa!

Somebody fell in love with Clifford's First Christmas while we were there.  I read it many times.

A few days before Christmas we hosted a potluck lunch with my cousins and aunts and uncles from my mom's side of the family.  It was wonderful to spend time with some of my cousins that I don't get to see often.  The boys ran around outside and played together so nicely.  One of my cousins actually converted to Catholicism several years ago and now they have five kids and one more on the way.  It made for a fun get together with so many kids.

My mom's side of the family in front of my parent's house, my childhood home a few days before Christmas.

Bob and Judah were with me in the bathroom so they missed out on the cousin picture, baby Savanna was nursing.

On Christmas Eve, we have a long standing tradition with my dad's side of the family.  It is a potluck finger-food dinner at one of the cousin's houses.  The kids all draw names and do a Secret Santa gift exchange since there are so many of them.  The adults all bring a gift for a White Elephant gift game.  The girls chose to be in the White Elephant gift game this year.  It was truly so wonderful to see everyone.  I had never seen some of my cousins' kids before.

The Ladies on Christmas Eve

The Kids on Christmas Eve

The Men on Christmas Eve

Before we left my parent's house...

The Secret Santa exchange got a little crazy.

Genna found another baby girl to cuddle!

On Christmas Eve we went to a Latin Mass at midnight.  We decided to take everybody, but when we went back to home base before Mass, Judah pooped out on us and wanted to go to bed.  Since there were lots of people at home, we let him stay.  Bobby was still going strong, so he went with us.  We got there at 10:45pm and the whole church was full.  We had to sit in the overflow room with a TV screen.  That was not really what we were hoping for, getting there one hour and fifteen minutes early.  Bob fell asleep about 12:15am and I put the Ergo on so I could let him be.  Kneeling on linoleum with 33 extra pounds is not nice. 

Christmas Day we stayed around the house, opened gifts, ate ham, and had a great time playing a family game of Knock Out and 2-on-2 games of basketball.  It was nice to have a relaxing day before heading back home the next day in a crazy rain storm.