Christmas Festivities #3

We spent the Tuesday morning before Christmas with Kyle's side of the family. Over the last few years a tradition has emerged with the Warmington side of the family. We gather at Jim & Judy's (Kyle's parents) for breakfast--Belgian waffles...yum! After breakfast we open gifts. And every year Judy comes up with a new "game" to play to win some sort of prize. This year the game was that we had to roll dice and try to get a certain number (6, I think). When you rolled a 6, you put oven mitts on and attempted to unwrap the prize gift. It started out as a big box and had increasingly (decreasingly??) smaller boxes wrapped inside. It got pretty hectic with people trying to roll really fast and grab the mitts from whoever was unwrapping. It was really hard to unwrap the smaller boxes! Such a fun, unique game and I don't have any pictures from it because I was being too competitive...and I won! It ended up being a gift card for Family Christian Stores, so I'm excited about that :)

Maguire enjoying his waffles...heavily laden with lots of whipped cream, syrup, and strawberries!

Ashlyn didn't want to get dressed that morning, so she spent the whole day in her PJs. Hey, it was "Christmas"!

Is there any question that these cousins enjoy spending time together??

Ashlyn opening gifts

Kyle's dad had a brain hemmorhage 15ish years ago. We're incredibly blessed to have him around today, but he has some physical limitations. Judy figured that a Wii would be a great way for him to get a little bit of activity in from his chair or standing with a walker. I don't know about Jim, but the rest of the family certainly enjoyed it ;)

Hannah Montana look-alikes Eliani and Olivia with the "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake

Playing Wii

Christmas Festivities #2

On the Monday before Christmas Ashlyn and I joined my mom and my sister-in-law, Brittany for our annual "Limpa" baking day. My mom's mother is 100% Swedish so Limpa, a sweet Swedish rye bread, has been a favorite in our family for as long as I can remember. Baking it is a true labor of love as it has multiple "risings" and takes all day to bake. My mom made these cute aprons for us to wear on our baking day. It's one of my favorite family traditions!

Monday evening we went to my aunt and uncle's house for my extended Spoelman family Christmas. It's pretty low-key and always fun! We had a lot of yummy soups, salad, and munchies. My Grandma got Ashlyn a Diego game for her Smart Cycle and she got a Black & Decker Jr. power tool (metal grinder?) for Maguire. And she always gives us some yummy homemade goodies along with other cute things. Ash and Mac LOVED chasing (ok, terrorizing) my cousins' cat around the house and the rest of us had fun playing Wii. I wish we saw my family more often--they're so fun!

My dad on a big orange Love Sack!

Uncle Nate helping Mac figure out his grinder. How do you like that mask thingy with his binky behind it?? Ha ha!

Village people?? Men at work??

Ashlyn showing Grandma how the Smart Cycle works

Maguire found a way to play with Chini even when Chini didn't want to be played with ;)

Britt and me

Christmas festivities #1

Our Christmas festivities started the Sunday before Christmas. Ashlyn and I joined the Tubergen women (Brittany, my sister-in-law's family) and my mom for their annual cookie day. We all brought cookies (or some other goodies) to exchange after a fabulous catered luncheon and cookie decorating. Ashlyn and Cora (Britt's cousin's 4-year-old) had fun eating cookies and watching Little Mermaid. After that, my parents and Nate & Britt came back to our house for dinner and gifts. Great fun family time!

Ashlyn helping wrap gifts

Ash and Cora showing off the very heavily decorated cookie that RJ (Cora's older brother) made for them to share.

Some of the cookies

The decorators (plus Luke)

Ashlyn's OWN digital camera!

Maguire is SO into tools and my grandparents got him a 42-piece Black & Decker Jr. set. It was a huge hit! He immediately went about "fixing" the house :)

Ashlyn loved the Smart Cycle my parents got her--apparently it's a good workout and she was sweating after a short time and had to take her clothes off ;)

Snowman Christmas Party

The theme for Ashlyn's class's Christmas party was Snowmen. They heard stories about snowmen, decorated snowman cookies, played "pin the nose on the snowman", had a snowman book exchange, and made the most adorable snowman hats!

Isn't this hat so cute?!

Praying before snacktime. I just love this!

Ash's class and Mrs. Stoufer

At the end of the day the kids put on a program and sang some songs. The 3's class sang "S-A-N-T-A" to the tune of B-I-N-G-O. Really spiritual, huh? It was cute, though :)