Andes Christmas

Saturday we celebrated Christmas with the Andes side. In many ways, even with an extra kid, this year seemed less chaotic.
When we arrived at Bill and Renee's, the kids immediately started playing.

 

 

 

Then there were snacks.

And many different doctor-patient combinations.

Lots of cleaning- it's amazing how much fun a toy vacuum is!

Like father like son? Although usually the father is dressed as casually as the son.

Bows are really fun to put on your head.

No presents were opened until the kids sat for some pictures.

Charlie and Rudy had bows on their heads. Just as I snapped the picture, someone mentioned that their bows matched their shirts, and they both looked down.

Someone noted we had the makings of the Village People- a police officer and a construction worker to start.

Charlie helping Paige put the construction costume on.

N got a stroller for his baby and borrowed Lucy's doll to try it out.

After presents, we had dinner.

And then played some more.

It was a nice night, so the older kids played outside. (Max and bill were playing football but it was too dark to take any other pictures.)

And then we had dessert.

And played some more.

And then pajamas were put on (the girls happened to have matching Hello Kitty pj's- Rudy tried to photo bomb the picture.)

And N and Paige played a little more (actually Paige was rolling this out to exercise, but N kept insisting it had to get rolled back up.)

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve we headed to the Children's service as usual. A few pictures were taken before church. (Note: Rudy picked out his outfit at the store, and when I asked what he thought N should wear, he said they should match, so he picked out the same outfit.)

And of course, you always need a silly picture.

At church our friends, Will, Jared, and Nathan (Along with the choir director, Bryan) played before the service.

N happily joined all the kids (especially the pre-teen girls) for the children's sermon.

The new choir robes came in just days before Christmas, so this was their official unveiling.

After church, we got together at Donna's with some other families. Total for the night: 10 children (1 girl, 9 boys) and 4 adults.

Rudy and his buddy Joe (it took me a while to get this picture to take because it was dark, so we finally went with whatever turned out).

Serious discussions were had.

Donna and her boys always have the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve, so we got to enjoy that. This was taken and within 5 minutes the kids had all scattered again and the adults could enjoy the (relative) peace of the kitchen.

Christmas morning... looking at stockings.

 

Enjoying a new wii game.

And since I took a picture of Rudy, N needed one taken, too.

Around 11am, Paul's family and my dad came over for brunch. So more presents were opened.

N had been gradually getting sick starting Christmas Eve, by the time he woke from his nap Christmas, he was miserable. At least he made it through all the fun activities. Our usual Christmas Eve tradition is going out for Chinese food. With N not feeling well, we did carry out instead.