Christmas in Kansas Day 2

I guess since it is almost mid-January I should finish posting about our trip to Kansas for Christmas.  On Monday we got up and headed over to visit my Grandpa.  We got there at the same time as my sister and family were pulling up.  We had not seen each other since May so we were very excited.  When Jillian saw Sophia she said, "My Phia I want to give her a hug."  They had a great time with each other and made me wish even more that we lived closer together.

Jillian, Hadley and Sophia

Grandma and Grandpa with some of their girls.

When I tell my girls that we are going to visit Grandpa Great the first thing they ask is if we can play coasters.  They dump the coasters out of the container and try to throw them back in.  The last time we were there this kept them and Grandpa Great busy for a good 30 minutes.  They had to let Sophia in on the fun right away.

While we were are Grandpa's we also got to see my Aunt Ellen, Cousin Carrie and her baby Benton, Cousin Chris and his girlfriend Maria.  Grandpa took us all out for pizza.  It was fun to all be together.  I think I usually get to see Chris about once every couple of years.  We are only 5 months apart and were pretty close when we were little.  We even got called twins a time or two.  Kind of reminds me of Jillian and Sophia.

The cousins and Grandpa (notice that Grandpa cheers for the right team)

The little girls wanted their picture taken too.  They were all about to breakdown at this point it was rest time for sure!

After lunch we headed to my Mom and Mark's to celebrate Christmas.  It was a house full and lots of fun.  All the cousins hadn't been together since last Christmas and they were glad to see each other.

Sophia and Jillian loving on each other.

Some of the cousins

Time for our annual sibling picture.  We had a hard time deciding which camera to look at.  I think Jess and I better look into our belly issue :)

Little Alex (who just turned 18) and Loryn

Mike and me

Jessica and Matt (poor Matt, Jess made me take this picture about 10 times)

Cammie and Jordan

The piano didn't get much quiet time will all of the little kids around.  I think Sophia played the most.

Brennen doing some Lego work.  I hadn't seen Brennen since June and I was so amazed at how much he had grown up in such a short time.

Brylee and Jillian playing their "games".

Time for some princess dress-up.  No matter what dress-up clothes are around they always end up as princesses.

Granny and Grandpa

And we ended the night with some Lady love.

Christmas week in Kansas

We are fortunate that we got to see almost all of our family members this Christmas.  Christmas is the one time a year that all my siblings are together.  We celebrated Christmas many times and had lots of fun.  The girls were in cousin withdraws when we got back home.
We started our trip by going to Granny and Granddad's on Christmas night.  The girls loved the new roller skates that Granny and Granddad got them and we had to go test them out right away.  My favorite comment from Hadley was, "This is a lot harder than is looks mom."  Lucky for the girls Mom and Dad had packed their safety gear.

We had a fun Christmas night with Granny and Granddad.  The girls even ended the night petting Pumpkin the dog, this is a huge thing for my scared of dogs girls.  We then headed to Grandma and Grandpa's to spend the night.  Next up Day 2 of Christmas in Kansas.

Christmas morning

Christmas morning was a fun time are our house.  The first present we recieved was the girls sleeping in.  Jillian and Mike finally had to go wake Hadley up so we could open presents before we got on the road to Kansas.  The girls were so much fun to watch this Christmas.  They both got so excited about everything they got.  I think Mike and I got a hundred thank yous and hugs that morning.  We then gave the girls a little time to play while the cinnamon rolls baked.  We put candles in our cinnamon rolls and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. The girls played some more and then we got around and headed to Kansas for the next of many Christmas celebrations.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

 Our Christmas Eve was full of game playing, baking cookies for Santa, baking ham and mashed potatoes for dinner, reading the story of Baby Jesus, going to Christmas Eve service and getting into our Christmas jammies.

We had a great day as a family and can't wait to celebrate the birth of Jesus tomorrow.

Calla

Our Elf on the Shelf, Calla, has been busy lately.  She loves to make the girls laugh.  Here she is taking a bubble bath in marshmallows.

 Calla really likes our new pet, Prince Eric.  He was a Christmas gift from our wonderful neighbors, Mr. Bob and Ms. Connie.  The girls love to sit and watch Prince Eric.

 Calla has also been known to hang off of pictures, hide in stockings, eat M&Ms, drive doll cars, and sit in the Christmas tree.  We have had a lot of fun with Calla this year.  This morning Calla brought a card and gift for the girls.  The card thanked them for letting her visit this year, told them they were on the nice list and she would see them next year.  The girls were very excited that Calla brought them something.  Hadley decided that she wanted to give Calla a gift and write her a card.  The girls spent time drawing cards for her and then wrapped up a couple of toys for Calla to take back to the North Pole with her.
Here they are with the gifts they left her.

I think they were both a little sad to say goodbye to Calla tonight but they excitement of Santa took over and all was good.

Edible Christmas Trees

We have been trying to do some sort of Christmas activity each day this week.  One of the activities was to make Christmas tress out of ice cream cones.  I used this as my bribe to get the girls to behave at the grocery store on Monday.  I told them we would make them when we got home.  I did not count on Target being out of the actual cone shaped ice cream cones.  So we made due with what we could get.  They still had fun and looked somewhat like a Christmas tree.

 And this is what Jillian looked like after eating her Christmas tree.