Cousin Love

Evelyn loved hanging out with her big cousin, Alana, over Christmas.

  

Alana is 18 months old and too sweet. She's fun loving, talkative, loves monkeys and balls, and very kind to Baby Evie. She wasn't so sure about Evelyn at first, especially when Evie cried:

But as the week went on she got more used to it and was even able to say something that sounded similar to "Evie"! Whenever Evelyn fussed Alana would go look for her and point at her, trying to get someone to help Evelyn and get her to stop crying. By the end they were into cousin hugs and kisses :)

My mom gave them matching penguin outfits for Christmas and we thought they looked adorable together. Getting them both to sit together and be somewhat happy and still was quite the challenge, but we did get a few pictures of the two of them together.

Evelyn loved being with Alana and hopes that next time she'll be big enough to help Alana with her towers...

...instead of just watching.

Ohio Christmas, Part II

After spending several hours opening gifts, laughing and enjoying each others' company, we had worked up quite an appetite. Christmas dinner was amazing as always. Here we are all squeezing in around the table. Once Alana and Evelyn are big enough to sit at the table too, my parents will need a bigger table!

Kate, Emily, and Trina getting their food. Purple was the color of the day. :) Katie, I love your awesome reindeer earrings.

Here's Evelyn demonstrating how we all felt after the feast.

The rest of the afternoon (and really much of the week) was spend on games and hanging out.

Katie gave Chris and my dad table top corn hole for Christmas. It was rather addicting actually...

My mom had made a big batch of chili for dinner one night. She wasn't very happy with how it turned out - a bit too bland - so she divided the batch in half and turned it into a chili competition between the guys and girls. :) Katie and Nathan (2) missed the cooking process so they were the official, unbiased judges. :) Here are the guys busy at work on their chili.

And here are the two judges contemplating their decision. They were placed in separate rooms so they couldn't influence each other's votes. ;)

I won't make *too* big of a deal out of which team was the unanimous victor ;) ;) because both batches of chili turned out absolutely delicious, but let's just say the girls weren't the sad ones that night. ;) Both teams spent time researching "secret chili ingredients" and reading chili blogs online. Lol. The guys secret ingredient was a few Hershey kisses and the girls was cinnamon (we almost ruined it by accidentally dumping in half the bottle - it may have smelled a bit more like mulled cider than chili in the kitchen for a bit... :)). Overall it was a very fun and competitive evening. :)

On Sunday we had some surprise visitors!

Liz and I realized that they would be driving within 10 minutes of my parent's house while we were in Cleveland and they were on their way to Canada. It was great fun to see Steve, Liz and Sam again for an hour or so. Too short but very good as always. :)

One of Christmas gifts was a trip to Christmas at Stan Hewitt. Stan Hewitt Hall and Gardens is the mansion estate of the family who started Goodyear Tire (I forget their names, the Seiberlings perhaps?). The house and gardens were all decked out for Christmas. The gorgeous inside of the house was all decorated in a Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" theme. Unfortunately photography was not allowed inside, but trust me, it was pretty amazing. :)

Here we all are by the gate house getting our hot chocolate and getting ready to head up to the house. Apparently there were 500,000 decorating the outside of the house and grounds.

Part of the front of Stan Hewitt:

Part of the back:

The green house was also all decorated in different color lights. Each tree had a different ornament theme as well - fairies, nutcrackers, birds - it was really well done. (Sorry these are a bit blurry, it was very cold outside and I was too impatient to hold super still :)).

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for such a fun Christmas gift!

Here's the whole Christmas gang. It was such a great week with everyone!!

Happy + Sneezy Baby

Emily & Caroline

Jeni's sisters, Emily and Caroline, sang a beautiful piece at Parkside Church on Christmas Eve.

Ohio Christmas, Part I

We headed north for a Christmas week with my family in Ohio. Thankfully, Evie loves her car seat and was a very good traveler - she slept the whole trip except for when we woke her up to feed her! Something tells me this may be our easiest drive with her ever, but we'll see. :) The week was packed with friends and activities so I'm going to break the trip into a couple posts so no one get too overwhelmed. :)

Here's Evelyn watching patiently while we packed. She's wearing her new little baby cow outfit that her daddy bought for her. The hat cracks me up!

A highlight of the trip was introducing Evie to family members that she hadn't met yet. Here she is with some of them:

Great-Grammy Walker

Great-Grandad Walker

Uncle Chris (Evie adored her Aunt Kate too, I realized though I didn't get any pics of them :()

Cousin Alana

Aunt Katie

Evelyn was also delighted to see some of her old favorites again, Aunt Emily and Aunt Caroline.

Nana and Grandpa were a hit with Evelyn too (of course), but we didn't get very many pictures of them this time. :(

On Christmas Eve Evelyn was pleased to see that she even had her own stocking with her name on it! If you look at an earlier post you'll be able to watch just how much she enjoyed being in her stocking. ;)

We all went to the early Christmas Eve service because of the babies and then went back to my parents for a Christmas eve party and pickle hunt! We sang lots of carols with Katie, Emily, Chris, and Nathan accompanying (at different times, not all at once :)).

Emily and Caroline were singing with their friend Rachel in the 11:00pm service. Chris took a video of it for those of us who couldn't be there. It will be posted once Nathan shows me now. :) For now, here they are practicing to sing before 1,000+ people. Katie also sang with the praise team for the 11:00:

Evelyn slept through most everything.

After our Christmas Eve party we carried all the presents up from the basement. Since there are close to, if not more than 200, we keep them downstairs until Christmas Eve so we don't trip over them in the days leading up to Christmas. :)

Evelyn's favorite part of Christmas morning was the stockings. I think that's because it was the only part she was fully awake for. She fell into an overstimulation-induced sleep for most of the presents. :)

Evie loves the shopping cart that her cousin Alana gave her, although there was some confusion among the cousins as to who it really belonged to. :)

Evelyn was also thrilled with her Hillsdale t-shirt. Thank you, Aunt Katie!!

Alana did super well with all the stimulation and excitement. Finally, however, she got tired and just plopped down on some unopened presents to play with her new monkeys. :) Alana is a very sweet, well-behaved and fun 18 month old!

It was a wonderful morning as always. It was extra fun to have everyone there this year! It's the first time Chris and I have both been at my parents for Christmas morning since we've both been married. Grammy and Granddad joined us again this year as well which always makes it fun. :) The added element of 2 babies (and 3 next year! ...Kate, NOT me :)) made it all the more exciting and special. :) We were also relieved that no one was in the ER for Christmas morning this year!!!