Last stop for Christmas festivities...

Our last stop in Michigan was Joseph's sister's family. They are a family of 7 with 5 adorable kids that Jase and Meghan love to play with. The oldest is 11 and the youngest is 5 months (although he seems so much older - already weighs almost as much as Meghan and wears 12 month clothes).

Meghan is completely infatuated with babies, so she was always nearby.

Here she is after dragging a step out from the kitchen... not too close now.

Hmmm, maybe I'm not quite close enough...

Let's get this a little closer...

This is better...

Now I can play too!

Just look at how cute this baby is!

Joseph and his sister and her husband prepping New Year's Eve food...

The kids painted woods figures as a craft the one day...

Here are 3 of the kids with the end products...

Then there was lots of silly time on the air mattress in the evening waiting for midnight. The only "kid" that made it to midnight was the 11 year old. Everyone else fell asleep watching movies or decided to go to bed on their own.




Meghan is a popcorn eater, so here she is stuffing herself with popcorn...

We had a wonderful time visiting with our families in Michigan. We hope to see you again soon!

Christmas at Gramma's

When the kids were ready for a nap, we left the Kent Family Christmas and headed for Heather's Gramma's house. We last saw Gramma F. in October over Fall Break, but it was great to see her again and stay with her for a few days. Jase and Meghan were both excited to see Gramma, get a couple presents (Meghan some pots and pans for her kitchen, grocery cart, and a cabbage patch doll; Jase got a lite brite and bumblebee transformer), and see Gramma's 2 dogs Molly and Muffin. It took a couple days to warm up to the little dog's again, but by the day we left Meghan was in love.

Meghan with Gramma

Jase and Gramma coloring

That first night there it was very windy and around 4a the electricity went out. Lucky for us my Gramma has a generator, so it really didn't change things too much (we had heat, water, some lights, and tv - what more do you need).

In the morning Heather's parents came to Gramma's house and brought a lot of presents.

Both kids really loved unwrapping presents this year, although after a few presents, Meghan was done and it took a few hours to unwrap the remaining presents (a very difficult thing for Jase to let happen - he wanted to unwrap them now)!

Some of their presents were a big stuffed dolphin and alligator, dollhouse, remote control hummer H3, clothes, batcave, dishes for kitchen, truck, games, coloring books, candy, crayons, mittens, puzzles, play-doh, a frog tent, and bath toys.

Here they are opening some gifts...

Here we are playing with the play-doh and Muffin...

Here the kids are loving the frog tent. This thing is huge (think full size bed huge), but they really love it - especially if we play in it with them!

Jase went up to Heather's parent's house for the night and the rest of us had an early night since we still didn't have electricity. Around 11p the lights came back on and we were lucky as there were still hundreds of thousands of people without electricity still due to the high winds (that is one thing I don't miss about living in Michigan - going without electricity for days).


The next day Heather's parents and Jase were meeting us at Heather's other grandparent's house. The kids got a couple more toys and Meghan was able to eat some more fudge (this is her favorite). While we were there, Meghan decided that she wanted to tackle and wrestle Jase. At least it made for some cute pictures!

Does the midget in your family ever find it fun to wrestle and tackle the giant?

Then we headed back to Gramma's house to have dinner, give the kid's baths, and then drive to Joseph's sisters house in southern Michigan. That visit will be the next post...

Kent Family Christmas

The Saturday after Christmas we headed up to Michigan for some visits with our extended families. Our first stop was in Jackson at Joseph's Grandma's house for the Kent Family Christmas party. It had been a couple years since we had seen some of the aunts and uncles and cousins, so it was great to be there. Jase enjoyed playing with his cousins and some second-cousins. We had some great food, lots of desserts, some games being played (Joe learned how to play cribbage), and a walk around the block.

Some of the family

Games and food

Don't you just love how well kids play with toys they aren't used too...

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas Day at home in the morning and with some great friends in the afternoon.

Here we are Christmas morning after opening stockings. Meghan looks a little sleepy here, but in all actuality she doesn't really liker her tutu :( (I on the other hand love it). That is a penguin sticking out of the middle - she got it from her teacher at school/daycare.

Here is Meghan and Jase with Meghan's kitchen. She played with it for 3 hours Christmas morning. Now that's a perfect present!

Here Jase is showing off his "shark" car (I got these when I was a kid from cereal boxes I think, but never opened them). Jase was in heaven!

Jase also got a huge set of lincoln logs (almost 300 pieces). The Dora couch and blanket are Meghan's so as to stop any fighting and not wanting to share Jase's Cars couch. Now, Meghan spends most of her time on the Cars couch and Jase on the Dora...

Jase showing off our hard work of building each building shown on the instructions... Then he knocked it all down 5 minutes later when the "horse" broke out of the fence.

The kids also got a couple sets of pj's (one on Christmas Eve of course), an outfit of clothes, some books, art things, and a little candy. Jase was also the proud recipient of 12 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures - thank you Craigslist!

We spent the afternoon sharing a delish meal with these Joneses (there's nothing better than hangin with Joneses - my Gramma was a Jones...). The kids played well, the women talked and referred the big kids with the little kids, the men talked computers and guns. A terrific way to end the day.

Christmas in Michigan

We had Christmas with Heather's family in Michigan the middle of December and it sure was a busy 3 days. To start with we visited the wonderful Santa house in Midland. This Santa house is the best I've seen and each year it is a little different. In addition to the many trains, there is an airplane with an elf that blows "snow" bubbles on everyone inside. Jase still hates Santa and it takes everything we have to get him to sit next to Santa. Thankfully Meghan was content being held by the big guy...
A family picture in the sleigh...
After Santa's house we had a small Christmas with Heather's paternal grandparents. Jase really liked the village that was set up.Over the next two days we had Christmas with Heather's parents and Heather's maternal gramma. It was a very nice couple of days and we were blessed with many gifts given and received. Some of Jase's favorites include his Shake n' Go Crash ups race car track, Imaginext T-Rex dinosaur, Thomas train track, and many other toys. Meghan got clothes, a doll, an animal farm, and some stacking and nesting cups. I got a 12c food processor, 4-slice toaster, and other kitchen and craft accessories. Joseph got tools (level, jig saw) to add to his collection. The best gift we gave as a family was to Heather's parents, a digital picture frame and photo calendar for 2008. The digital frame was preloaded with pics of the grandkids and will be perfect for the 5th wheel camping they do.