Tuesday, December 30, 2008

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christmas eve at grandma and grandpa's is exactly the same as it was when i was a small child. the only thing that changes is the who gets to sit at the grown up table and who sits at the cousins table! it always begins with a prayer and big christmas eve dinner, buffet style, with a grown up table and a kid table. Photobucket
here is grandpa calvin being himself and trying to dump water on peoples heads
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then everyone shuffles into the nice living room for the reading of the christmas story out of the bible as the grandkids do their part to make the christmas story as entertaining as possible in bath robes and towles on their heads.
after which we sing silent night and then a few more christmas songs. Melanie reads us a christmas story(we missed her this year as she was on her honeymoon in Italy) and cousins share their musical talents. It is then back into the kitchen for christmas candy and cookies.

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wrestling match always preceeds the opening of christmas jammies from grandma Carla

since joining the family 4 years ago, devin has gladly
accepted the role as christmas donkey
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after opening of grandma and granpa's gifts we all head home, this year the snow was so bad that jay and julie were snowed in out north and kept a bunch of others from making the trip so the crowd was very small...we missed everyone. and the weather also sent us home early before the ice set in. when we get home, cookies and milk are set out and it's off to bed, but only for a few hours. this year i was awoken at 4am, but the boys had been up since 2:30...playing with the contents of their stockings.

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this year was a special christmas being that it was Naomi and Savannah's first christmas. naomi is in the antlers and Savannah is with the bow.

....Christmas Day....

we have a rule that at least part of the gifts we give eachother has to be home made. devin and I had big plans when we drew sam's name this year to make something cool in my dad's workshop, but weather kicked in and flying, so we ended up with the "home made part" being a snow man, or actually a 'snow sam." the snow sam was wearing a new snow beanie with a bow. this is Sam looking just like his snow sam.

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Cache and Claire were so cute palling around all week. and showing eachother up at bedtime with who could scream the loudest and test their parents patience. oh man we love these two.

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santa brought the much wanted "white sabers" and much fun was had.

4 comments:

natalie spratling said...

Oh how we missed Christmas Eve, it is always so fun to eat and eat and eat. We did, and are still doing plently of it. So glad Devin enjoys his role and the Christmas donkey, he is so cute with all of the kids. That is why we all love him so much.

Cher said...

so fun. we totally missed family during Christmas.

Cindy Spratling said...

This post is awesome. The best part about it is that you cropped me out of that picture of Ben's double chin. Thank you Thank you! That was a horrible pic of me :) But the way you laid it all out with the pictures and naration was cute! We miss you guys tons already. Cache and Claire were so cute together! And Naomi and Savvy's too! Love you all!

Mindy said...

Looks like so much fun! I can't believe how big Cache is getting. And how much snow was in PTown this year! Crazy! I'm happy you guys got to go home for Christmas this year. Also, I love the pictures of the wedding below--whoever did the pictures did an awesome job, they are beautiful!