Christmas the season of giving

Our children have been and always are extremely blessed! They are loved by so many and I hope one day they understand that is the greatest gift of all. To Love others and be loved! But since they are still small, they think about the presents! And believe me, they were SPOILED!!! Between all their grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends, you can say these kids were not short on presents. A HUGE gift our family received this year... we were able to spend Christmas with our entire family!

December 16- I went down to San Jose to go bridesmaid dress shopping with my sister and her wedding party, but while I was there, I spent some time with my Dad and his wife Connie. Mason finally met him! The other two kids were at home with Dad. So it was just me and the baby! My Dad couldn't stop holding him. We had dinner and a gift exchange. I was glad they were able to finally meet!

December 21-  Grandma Mimi's Christmas

Our Family, along with Trevor's sister and her family met at Carole's (Grandma Mimi's) where we celebrated Christmas together. She made homemade tortilla soup and Tiffany made a delicious (that is an understatement) cornbread (to DIE FOR- better statement). We spent the evening letting the kids play and us adults had a glass of wine and just chatted. The kids opened up their gifts and Grandma Mimi opened hers. It was nice and quiet, but definitely a lot of memories made. We were so excited to be able to see Tiffany, Travis, Alyssa and Ayden a lot on their visit to California!

Christmas Eve: Trevor and I opened our home and hosted Christmas dinner with my side of the family. All my siblings, their significant others and My cousins and Aunt came! Since we had 15 people at the house, all adults with the exception of my 3 kids ( Matt thinks he is an adult), we played minute- to -win-it games! Every person playing had to bring a $5 gift card to wherever. If you could not only pass the minute to win it game, but also had the fastest time, you won a gift card. Some people won a few and others went home empty handed. I think I had too many games, because after an hour, some adults got bored, and decided to play drinking games instead. ( Maybe it is just their age though too) I have to say, I almost peed in my pants from laughing so hard! Some of the games you needed a partner.

One game we played was called the holiday kiss. Each team had to hang 5 ornaments on a string, using only their mouths. If you touched the ornament with your hands you were disqualified. The winners were my cousins Austin and Rachelle. These two were big winners that night!

Brad and Janna

Brady and Megan

Rachelle and Austin

Brianne and Brittany



Debra and Donna ( Grammy and Granty)



The funniest ones to watch were my mom and my aunt Doo. (Granty to the kids). For one of the games called stack a cup, it was like watching in slow motion. (they think they are moving fast) My siblings, cousins and I couldn't help but make fun of them. Of course it was all innocent and in good humor.

 

 

 

 

  Lastly, Christmas! We spent Christmas morning with my siblings and my Mom, as well as with the two new additions coming into our family in June and September! ( Janna and Mikey) We sat around eating candy from our stocking, watching the kids open TONS of presents and eating the cheese balls Matt got from his Uncle Brad and Auntie Janna.

Maddison had so many presents she ended up getting tired of opening presents. And when she did open presents, she wanted to play with it immediately. She was quite entertaining and we loved seeing the look on her face when she opened presents she absolutely loved. (you could tell she wasn't so excited about clothes)

 

Later that afternoon, we packed up and went to Pa and Grandma's house (Trevor's Dad John and Deb's)

The kids, once again spoiled! This was Mason's first time meeting his Aunt Becca (who is expecting her first in June) and Uncle Jason. We Loved that the entire family was all together.

Maddison was obsessed with her Aunt TT. After getting to spend the week with Tiffany and the family, Maddison now knows new dance poses, as well as how you get a monkey out of a tree (You shake the tree!)

 

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Christmas was eventful, but absolutely wonderful! We were so happy we were able to have these memories created and our so fortunate to have such a wonderful family to spend the holiday's with.