Christmas {Marathon} 2013, part 1

We started off Christmas celebration with my grandparents on Friday, December 20th at their house.  My parents were down for the evening and we had dinner with my Aunt, Uncle, and two of my cousins.  Although there were 12 people at dinner, it felt like a small affair since nine members of the family were not in attendance.  My grandparents had presents for the boys (a Thomas ride-on toy and blocks) which were both a big hit.  John headed home with the kids as soon as they finished dinner while I stayed and talked for a while.

On Saturday my parents came by for lunch before they headed to Louisville for a wedding.  Then, to keep the excitement going, Uncle Todd, Aunt Sarah, and Cousin Claire came for a visit Saturday night (technically the visit was a Christmas present from 2012).  They brought Charlie a "Mike the Knight" castle for his birthday.  Both the boys love it, although Will struggles to share.

Monday night a few more of my cousins were back home and came over for a visit at our house.  Will and Charlie really liked playing with my cousin's daughter Amie.  Amie and Logan live in Kenya, so we don't see them very often!

Will, Amie, Charlie

Christmas festivities continues on Christmas Eve when we spent the day with at Nana and Pops. John's grandparents came over for lunch and brought the kids new toys.  Will then spent the entire time Charlie and Claire were napping playing with the Toy Story Color Splash water slide they got him.  He made quite a mess, but thankfully it was just water!

After Claire and Charlie woke up from their naps, we started the present opening extravaganza.  Toys quickly covered the floor (Sarah and I had to clean up carefully later so that we all took home to correct pieces!).  Here are a few photos of Claire and Charlie during gift opening.  Will was way too focused on opening presents to cooperate for photos.

After we opened gifts, we had the Pollom traditional appetizers for Christmas Eve dinner.  Then we loaded up the kids and headed home to wait for Santa!