6 Little Munchkins and How They Grew: 2011

On Christmas Eve we went over to Bret and Kora's house for lunch. We started off the visit by having Kylie throw up all over one of the kids' bedroom floors. Rob cleaned it up and I started getting the kids ready to leave, but Kora pointed out that if Kylie was sick, her kids had already been exposed, so we might as well just stay. Kylie felt much better afterwards and had no fever and never threw up again, and no one else ever got sick, so we're assuming it was too much excitement and candy, fortunately. We spent the afternoon eating and playing games, then headed home so that I could pick up Kate at the airport.

We decided to change our Christmas traditions this year and ended up really liking how everything went. Instead of having a full Thanksgiving meal on Christmas Eve, we followed a Sicilian tradition called "the seven fishes" and had choppino, a seafood stew, and linguini with white clam sauce, as well as a rustic Italian bread. Dessert was fruit and pannetone, an Italian fruitcake. It was perfect!

After dinner, the kids opened their Christmas pj presents. The older girls got flannel nightgowns, Jack got Captain America and Spiderman pj's, and Eva got pink monkey pjs. After that we skyped with Nona and Papa so that Papa could read "the Night Before Christmas" to the kids. We planned to read the Christmas story out of the Bible as well, but Jack fell asleep while skyping and the girls were pretty close to it.

Santa came that night and filled the kids' stockings, including one for Eva that was originally Kylie's from her school party as I couldn't find the material I bought (last year) to make Eva's stocking. She didn't notice though and we'll have hers made by next year, so we're good :) The adults decided to exchange names and fill each other's stockings, so we had stockings to open on Christmas Day too!

The kids all woke up super early and snuck downstairs to see if the stockings had been filled, but they waited for us to wake up before they took them down to see what was in them, which I was very impressed by!

A gorgeous shot of Becca ~

Eva was not horribly excited by her stocking. She liked the little ladybug toy in it, but she didn't get excited until she found the orange in the toe of her stocking. She looked around and discovered that everyone else had oranges too, so she waddled through the toys and collected all the oranges and brought them to me so I could peel them, then happily sat and ate all of them.

Santa brought the kids boxes of cereal this year, so we didn't have to worry about breakfast. Good idea Santa - think we may have to ask for that every year :)

Linda, Kylie and Becca

Kate

As we were able to eat our boxes of cereal for breakfast, we didn't have much to do before we were able to open presents. I stuck the ham in the oven and then we headed into the playroom. We took pictures of each of the kids with their presents before we got started.

Eva showed some slight interest in her presents this year, taking a huge bite out of a foam ball one of the kids picked out for her, then getting upset when Rob took it away.

After every present had been opened, Rob and I announced that there was one more present, the biggest present, hidden somewhere in the playroom. It didn't take the kids very long to discover that their dress up chest had been stocked with completely new costumes!

Kylie posing as a bunny-tiger-peacock ~

Becca and Kate

After things settled down, Kylie and Jack played Kylie's new Sponge-Bob fishing game ~

Megan painted her sun-catchers ~

Beth used her new stamps to decorate cards ~

Kylie shared her giant marshmallow lollipop with Jack ~

Simon rested on his favorite chair ~

Linda talked with Kate and Becca ~

Then Eva climbed into Becca's lap to cuddle ~

We had a big lunch rather than a big dinner. The kids got to use their little picnic table and even got special animal plates! We had ham, sweet and sour mustard, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, and jello.