Christmas with our families

We spent Christmas Eve with the Hogans. It's the holiday we traditionally spend with my Grandma and Grandpa and I really love it. It's a whirl of activity and commotion even more so with all of the great-grandbabies running around.

Grandma with Evajane and William. I love the way he's resting his arm on her knee.This year Dan and Grandpa read the Christmas story before we started opening presents. Gabe was a huge (and hilarious) helper. He sat quietly through the whole reading even though something was troubling him. When Dan and Grandpa were done reading he blurted to Grandpa, "You said clothes! It's supposed to be cloth."!!!! So observant and sweet! Love him!!

Caleb and William stayed busy mixing up some treats in the kitchen.

Grandma and William

Evajane and CalebEvajane loved giving Caleb spoonfuls of imaginary food from the play kitchen. He was a gracious recipient and loved accepting every bite!

Christmas morning we exchanged presents with my Dad and Sandi.

Sandi and Henry looking at his new, HUGE book including stickers and dry-erase markers! So much fun!

Love that William and my Dad are in a deep conversation in this one.

We spent Christmas Day and night at my Mom's.

The table set and ready for dinner.

Time to eat!

We woke Henry up from a deep-sleep nap when it was time to eat. Here he still isn't quite awake and ready to pose for me, even though he slept for a few hours!

William loved my Mom's tree! He stayed busy snatching ornaments off and running away.

The biggest thrill of Christmas!!! Throwing the Christmas garbage down the trash chute (and listening to it drop)!My Mom bought the boys matching pjs. We tried very hard to get a good picture of all four of them. It was tough!Oops, we lost one! Where could Caleb be?Surprise!!
My Mom bought this adorable tent and these sleeping bags for the big boys to have a camp-out.

Christmas with the Vances

Cousins! Henry, Caleb and Isaac

William got a big blue tractor.

Caleb, Isaac and Henry

Patrick opening Henry's new forklift (with remote).

We had a wonderful Christmas. It felt different this year; really meaningful. Christmas has always been very meaningful to me, but this year it was even more so. It was special having both boys to celebrate with and make things special for. And Henry really understood the meaning of Christmas and celebrating Jesus' birth. His excitement in the days leading up to Christmas made me feel giddy in anticipation. I'm so thankful for our family. We loved having the chance to celebrate with them. We've had lots of pj days in the past few weeks trying to catch up and settle back in to our normal, post-holiday routine. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.

Happy New Year!