Holiday confusion

For the past several years my family has celebrated Christmas on whatever day(s) worked for everyone to be together.  This year it just so happened that we are celebrating on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  So, today is a mishmash of Christmas and New Years all combined!  The day of festivities started with a visit from my cousin Amy, her husband Adbeel, and their beautiful daughter Krista, who are visiting from Guatemala.  Unfortunately I neglected to take any pictures of our brief time together.  After that we loaded up the mini vans and headed to the movie theater.  My sister and I took ten kids to see "Frozen" while several of the other adults took some of the older nieces and nephews to see "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."  Thankfully, the kids did great and even Liam made it through the entire movie!

Afterward we went to my parents' house for lots of playtime.  My sister's twins crack me up!  Malachi was pulling on Lydia's headband, so she retaliated by trying to untie his shoelaces.

Lillian loves all of her cousins.  She and Elsie, however, have a special bond and always love playing together!

After a delicious turkey dinner we sang a few Christmas carols and opened the first few gifts.

Part one of the Christmas festivities was great!  Part two comes tomorrow!

Snow fun!

Today we went over to my parents' house after church to spend some time with them and a smattering of siblings and cousins.  The cousins had a great time playing out in the snow together!  It's a good thing too because the temperature is supposed to drop drastically as the day goes on!

 

 

 

This week all of the DeYoung side cousins will be together for two days to celebrate Christmas and ring in the New Year!  We are looking forward to the crazy fun!

Merry Christmas!

Today we had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with the extended DuPuis family.  We had a nice, leisurely morning, some yummy breakfast, and lots of fun watching the kids open presents!

 

 

We were fans of our niece Anna's new sweatshirt!

One of the perks of spending Christmas with your cousins is that everybody shares their new toys!

 

We even managed to gather up all of the cousins for a decent picture!

Later on we had a delicious ham dinner together and lots more time to play, visit, and relax.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Eve morning

Merry Christmas Eve!  Since we will be celebrating with our extended DuPuis family tomorrow, this morning Dan and I celebrated with the kids.  The kids woke up and were very excited to open their stockings!

They were especially excited about their new Webkinz.  They even ate breakfast with us!

 

After eating breakfast, reading the Bible, and singing Christmas carols together, we went back to the living room to open presents together.

 

 

 Even Abbey had a Christmas present to open!

Caleb gave us his present that he made in preschool.  He had a pretty special homemade gift bag too!

Caleb and Lillian made the same ornament in preschool.  It's hard to tell in this picture, but Caleb's hand print is quite a bit bigger than Lillian's!

We had a fun, snuggly Christmas Eve morning!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Trees, trains, and tubes

This morning we surprised the kids and brought them to Frederik Meijer Gardens to see the Christmas trees and trains.  We got there early before the crowds and had a great time!

 

We didn't realize it until we got there, but Frederik Meijer Gardens was without power and running on generators.  As a result, only one of the trains was running, but our kids didn't seem to mind!

 

 

We had fun looking at the beautiful plants and Christmas trees too!

 

The ice from Sunday's ice storm is still around and now the snow has clung to the branches as well. The trees were beautiful all along our drive!

 Later on I took Liam to an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat specialist.  He has had recurring ear infections this fall and has had fluid in his ears since the end of September.  After talking through lots of medical history and taking a close look at his ears, the ENT doctor recommended Liam get tubes put in and his adenoids taken out.  His procedure is scheduled for late January.  While we certainly weren't planning on our little guy having surgery, we are thankful that this should bring relief and prevent any damage.  And, Liam is just thankful that the doctor's office keeps toys on hand!

Ice day #2

Last Friday was an ice day from school, but today turned out to be an ice day of a different kind.  More than 600 churches were closed today, including ours.  Dan and his team had put in many extra hours to prepare several new Bluegrass arrangements of Christmas carols for this morning's service.  To say that Dan was disappointed would be an understatement.  We tried to make the best of it, however, and have a little fun at home.

Thanks to our friend Kelly's recommendation on her blog, we gave the self-timer on our camera a try.  It worked like a charm!  The flashing green light was totally mesmerizing and we wound up with some good pictures after only three tries!

We decided to take a silly picture too, which is definitely one of my favorites!

We also started what may turn into a yearly tradition, the making and decorating of a gingerbread house!  We had a kit from a Christmas or two ago (don't worry, we won't be eating any of it!) and finally gave it a go.  We had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

Although we still wish we had been able to have church this morning, it turned into a pretty great day after all!

Snow/Ice Day #1

Today was supposed to be the last day of school before Christmas break.  Instead, it is our first snow/ice day of the year!  I knew their was "wintry mix" in the forecast but was still surprised to get the phone call at 5:30 this morning and to see over 600 closings listed!  We celebrated with our traditional homemade doughnuts, this time in the shape of snowmen!

Thankfully Lillian had already had her Christmas party at school yesterday.  She was disappointed to miss out on all of the 1st graders watching "The Polar Express" together, so I promised we would all watch it later today!  Today is the perfect day to enjoy the ice covered view from inside our warm, cozy home!