After our relaxing week at home, we headed off to Bryan College Station to spend time with my family. We call it Tivo Christmas, because we celebrate on our own time as if we had just recorded it on our Tivo and then celebrated later.
In attendance was my whole family: My parents, my sister Erin, my brother-in-law Arthur, their kids Martin (7), Winnie (5), and Libby (3), my sister Julie, my brother-in-law Brian, and their kids John (7) and Dixon (4 months). That makes 7 kids and 8 adults. Let's just say, when we're all together, it's pretty chaotic, but it's also like a party all the time.
Our third day was "Christmas" Day. We work it out so the kids open their
presents in the morning and us adults open our presents in the evening
after the kids get put to bed. It makes it super fun, because we can let
loose and see what everyone got, without keeping an eye on the young
and impatient kids. The kids and the adults had a great Christmas.
We had our first really cold snap and the highs were in the low 50's every day, but it was also pretty gray and a little windy, so playing outside wasn't all that much fun. The clutch move however, was the fact that my parents heated their entire pool. This was awesome, because even in the cold temps, the kids could get their energy out and have a blast in the pool. They even got to swim in the rain one night.
Even without the pool though, it's so fun to see the cousins play and get along so well. They are so cute together. The little 3 year olds, Connor and Libby are adorable. They seem to speak the same 3 year old language and love playing make believe games. I caught them pretending to be baby hamsters at one point. Of course Connor idolizes his oldest cousin Martin (7 1/2). He follows him around and is always asking where he is. Both me and my sister Erin are so happy to see our kids so close.
Despite the crowd, we were tried to keep the gathering as low key as possible. We only cooked one night, but even that was easy, because we all just chose a heavy hors d'oeuvres to prepare on New Years Eve. We got a babysitter one night and went out to dinner and had drinks, and the other nights we ordered take-out. It was great and gave us our entire day and evening to just have fun instead of slaving away cooking and cleaning in the kitchen.
As always, we burned the candle at both ends, staying up really late (around 2am each night) and getting up early with the kids, but it was worth it. We had a blast. Here are lots of pictures from our third and final Christmas in Bryan.
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| Just settling in. Avery shows off her standing and cruising skills. |
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| Dixon had just woken up from a nap, so he was pretty mellow and relaxed laying on Grandpa's tummy. |
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| Now there's a happy guy. |
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| This year, the kids were all about games on their phone. |
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| Avery was naughty and climbed up on the bar. Oh please let this be the last time that happens. Hee hee. For real though, she looked cute on the bar and Grandma and Grandpa couldn't resist a photo shoot. |
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| They couldn't resist sweet kisses either. |
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| Dinner time for the cousins was always an adventure. |
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| The whole crew was present, so Jeff quickly got out the camera and took a snapshot. What a fun bunch. |
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| Swimming during winter time. Gotta love it. |
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| The cute baby cousins, Avery (8 mos.) and Dixon (4 mos.). |
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| Some Grandpa bonding time. |
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| Older cousins Winnie and John were so sweet and gentle with Avery. You could tell they enjoyed taking care of her. |
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| Sweet tenderness from cousin John. |
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| The big kids. |
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| Santa, aka Grandpa, came for a visit on Tivo Christmas Eve. All the kids were excited even though the bigger kids knew it was Grandpa. |
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| Dixon was a little stunned. |
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| Avery once again was completely distraught. Can you tell she was just crying? |
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| We decided to have the kids decorate Christmas cookies for Santa. We let them decorate one and eat one. |
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| Our cookies for Santa. |
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| Connor showing off his singing reindeer hat. |
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| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. |
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| Christmas Day, Connor got eye black in his stocking. He was so excited. |
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| Grandpa and his Christmas baby Avery. |
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| Singing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus. |
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| Connor got a framed picture of Johnny Manzel. He was beaming. |
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| Look it's Batman. We have played Batman and Lizard man (the bad guy of Spider Man...go figure) a lot at home. |
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| Sometimes the box is the best part. |
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| Adult Christmas and we had to take our annual Father/Daughters picture after we got our gift from our Dad. |
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| Brian made these shirts for all the guys for our annual Son In Law of the Year (SILOTY) competition. It always ends in the tie. |
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| Even though it was rainy, it didn't stop the kids from having a blast while doing their annual candy cane hunt. |
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| Grandma helping Connor and Libby find candy canes. It is really funny, because even candy canes that look so obvious to us are "hard" to find for the three year olds. |
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| Happy candy cane hunters. |
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| Mommies with the newest babies. You'll be hunting for candy canes next year little ones. |
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| Adult supervision while the kids swim on a rainy night. |
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| Avery makes a great life guard. |
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| New Years Eve, Avery got to wear the crown from one of our poppers. "What's up Avery?" |
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| Even though it was really cold, the kids happily sat through a mini fireworks display. |
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| The kids even got to help. |
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| Grandpa and ALL 7 grandkids. |
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| Luckily, it had been a long week for everyone, so even the kids were being a little lazy on New Years Day. Thank goodness, since all the adults were pooped from our celebrating the night before. Here Libby and Connor snuggle with Aunt Erin. |
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| Daddy getting snuggles from Connor and... |
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| snuggles from Avery. |
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| No more mellow Avery, here is our happy girl. |
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| A perfect day to watch football. Michigan lost, but it was still a good day. |
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| One last time to play with the boxes before we headed back to Sugar Land. What a fun trip. |
