Christmas 2016

For Christmas, we headed down to Salisbury on Christmas Eve to celebrate with the entire family.  We stopped at Grammy and Grumpa's house and spent the day/evening with them.  Uncle Ryan came and we had a nice relaxing around the house.  The kids opened their gifts and had a great time playing with their new toys.

         

Later that night, we headed over to MeeMaw and Grandpa's house to get the kids in bed before Santa came.  The kids were exhausted and fell right to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up, got the annual "top of the stairs" picture and then the kids got to come downstairs to see if Santa arrived.  And boy did he!!

                           

It was Quinnie's first Christmas and everyone was excited to see what she would do.  After a few minutes, she jumped right in and enjoyed opening her presents.

After opening our stockings and playing with Santa gifts, we ate breakfast, and settled in to a full day of opening presents.  All in all, the kids did a good job hanging, but we did have to put Lauren, Charlie, and Quinnie down for a nap.  That allowed the grownups some time to relax and open gifts.  And once the kids were awake, they were ready for some more presents.  Lauren even got the "hardest gift to find in 2016", a Hatchimal, and boy was it a big hit!!  She named it Pali Marie.

                           

                            

That evening, Chad made Christmas dinner and we were joined by Grammy, Grumpa, Uncle Ryan, Great Aunt SA, Great Uncle Mike, and Juliana!!  It was a wonderful evening.

          

During the rest of our visit, we spent an evening over with Grammy, Grumpa, Uncle Ryan, and the Underinkas.  We exchanged more gifts and the kids played with their cousin J!

We also played with the new Virtual Reality Sets Grandpa and Uncle Kevin got for Christmas, played Pie Face, watched Home Alone, with Kayla, and went bowling.  It was such a fun vacation!

                        

                       

                     

                     

                     

After 5 days in Salisbury, we loaded up both cars (yes, we have to take 2 cars to carry everything there and back during the holidays), and headed home to Gainesville.  

I dropped off the kids and then headed back to college park to meet Meemaw for a Maryland Women's Basketball game.  They were playing the undefeated Uconn team and the game was sold out.   Chad managed to find us tickets, and we went to show support for our Lady Terps.  Unfortunately, they lost, but we had a great time and the game was much better than the year before.  One of these days, they will win, and I hope we are there to watch it!

 It was a great holiday, filled with a lot of family, food, gifts, laughs, and love.  As usual we wished we could have stayed longer, but it was time to get back and prepare for the next amazing holiday...New Years Eve with our Summered crew!!