This year we hosted Christmas Eve at our house with my family. We were fortunate to have the entire crew- with the exception of Keith and Kristan's family who came a few days later. Even Nana & Papa were in town to celebrate with us. Collin was suppose to come, but ended up not being to get off of work in time - bummer.
Of course, anytime our family gets together, its crazy madhouse, but nonetheless filled with loud laughter. Chels and I made tons of food - and for once - we actually had too much food leftover. This never happens with my family - you usually have to act quickly before it's all gone. We prob did go a litle overboard with everything, but I love baking - and there's no way I'm going to be stuck eating it all. I do have to say Chels' apache cheese dip was a goner in no time at all! This seemed to be everyone's favorite and perhaps a new tradition.
After we ate to our hearts content - we played a new game that we recently learned. We had everyone wrote down 2 things no one knew about - which is kinda hard w/family & spouses in the room. For people who had a difficult time, like my mom, we let them only put down one thing :) Then we selected 3 people to be on a panel - each trying to convince everyone else the story or incident was there own.
The funniest moment of the entire night was when Lance was trying to explain he "injured himself on my first kiss." As he was retelling the details, he mentioned the person's name was Alex and he was in middle school. A few seconds later, my mom blurts out "You mean it was a girl!" It took everyone a few minutes of hardcore laughing to recover from that one. To everyone's surprise, it was actually JEREMY who injured himself on his first kiss - getting his tongue or lips or something cut on the girls braces.
We also learned that Brendan had a secret crush on Hannah Montana and is addicted to the tv show. And to everyone's surprise, it wasn't Papa :)
We then shared a few christmas stories. We had a kids picture book that recounted the story of the birth of Jesus. Chels also shared a story about Joseph's persective, Lance read his fav story "A Brother Like That" and Papa read another story "Teach the children" - and of course was in tears by the end of it. We know where my mom gets it from!
And then we did the white elephant gift exchange. The gifts were awful so there was not much stealing going on. However, there was one good present - Brendan's laptop computer - that Jeremy threw in as a joke. And then everyone tried to blame it on Papa...
At that point, the parents and grandparents were getting tired and headed home...but the boys stayed around to play a game of Risk. After a few hours, Jeremy ended up gaining world domination, only because he was able to manipulate Brendan (or at least that's what Anthony claims).
Before it was bedtime, Avery and Tanner but on their new Christmas PJs. Here's some cute pics we took to capture the moment:
Our Family
Momma's little Santa Baby
Uncle Lance holdings Tanner & Avery
