It's A Wrap

Family pictures are something of a nemesis! You just can't get a good one. But that is the stage of life we are in so I guess it keeps it real. This is about as good as it gets! We spent the Sunday before Christmas with my side of the family and then the day after Christmas with Mark's family. I hardly have any pictures from the time we spent with my side of the family since I am far too busy gabbing to take pictures. It really is quite terrible!

One of my favorite moments from time spent with family was holding my nephew Zavior. I don't get to snuggle any of my kids anymore. They are preoccupied with running and climbing and not very interested in the snuggle time. To have Zav fall asleep in my arms and holding him for a long time filled up my heart!

Mark's three youngest sisters! They are such fun, the best babysitters and we have been blessed immeasurably with how they serve our rambunctious crew!

Mark's sister Christine, her husband Eric and their sweetheart Annalise! We are already planning sleep-overs for our girls once they are old enough. Hope they like each other!!

Mark's sister Suzanne, husband Moe and little guy Zavior! Doesn't he have the sweetest eyes?

The festivities at my sister's house with my side. The kids were just getting ready to start ripping into their gifts. They all exchange names as cousins. It is probably one of our kids favorite things at Christmas. They look forward with such anticipation to giving their gifts to their cousins!

Eden with her gift from her cousin Chase! She loves dressing them - especially at bedtime. She has a hard time crawling into bed unless the little dolls have their jammies on too.

Tristan and his best buddy Julianna! These two have the sweetest and funniest connection! Tristan asks for Julie a lot. He loves any chance he gets to play with her which isn't often enough for him!

These pictures are all so backwards. Oh well! The week of Christmas heralded Judah's winter concert. He was pretty excited and was happy to see his whole family, including his dad, at the concert.

Tristan was not impressed with the band. Too loud!!

Christmas morning digging into their stockings!

We usually give the kids jammies on Christmas Eve so they all had their footie jammies on - including the big boys!

More stocking stuff! We were really blown away with how grateful our kids were this year. We have never gotten them much but we scaled back even more this year. They still said things like, "You didn't have to get us so much." and "This must have cost so much!" We were amazed at their expressions of thankfulness! Since both sides of our family are large our kids do not get inundated with stuff from extended family for which we are extremely thankful! They seem to be understanding that spending time together creates far more memories than the things they receive! Now.....I don't want you thinking they are this grateful all the time because that wouldn't be painting a completely accurate picture. They are still kids, you know?

Books...puzzles...candy....what more could you ask for?

Maybe your very own "brown" baby!! Although Eden has been thrilled with her baby she still has been voicing pretty frequently that she wants a cute brown baby sister!!

And where was Heidi during the initial present extravaganza? Why, asleep in our bed! She was getting some much needed rest before opening her presents! Still think you are hard pressed to find anything sweeter than a sleeping babe!!

Everyone was more than happy to help Heidi open her stocking and her gifts when she finally awoke to the land of the living.

Not Christmas related at all but......this is princess Eden who was dressed up by her big brothers! They decided she needed a royal pet too so therefore Heidi's caterpillar was all decked out as well! She doesn't look too thrilled in this picture but she was eating up the attention of her big brothers.

And that is a wrap on Christmas!