New Years with Family

Three days after Christmas we drove to our Maryland and Virginia homes away from home and stayed until January 2nd.  It was our Christmas exchange with our families and friends and we celebrated with them too on New Years Day.  Here is how our trip unfolded. 

 

First stop was Mimi and Dunka’s.  Billy and Devon were in Europe so mom and dad were watching Bella, Madelyn and Holden.  

 

Gavin and Holden really figured out how to push each others buttons. 

The gift the boys and I made for Mimi and Dunka to hang.  Each of them made an eagle out of their handprints. 

Excited about their new humongous cars tent!

 

 

We took a fieldtrip with 6 kids to the Natural History Museum. 

A butterfly landed on Bella and made her day at the Butterfly enclosure at the Natural History Museum. 

The next stop was Jose and Nikki’s house.  Here is Easton and Elijah.  Another blogger friend you may know.  Jamie’s little boy. 

 

The third stop was my Pop and Grandmas house. 

 

This was New Years Eve and the weather was so beautiful outside.  After this Bradley got to go home with Aubrey and stay the night.  Those two love each other and don't get enough time together now that they have younger siblings. 

  

I love this picture of Brad with his bubbas!

 

My Dad smiling at his new photo calendar. 

Last but not least on our fourth stop was my Grandma and moms house. 

 

Gavin and Jackson crushing Ritz crackers for one of the recipes. 

=  

Group shot of everyone there and waiting for mine and Jenn’s kick ass crab imperial to be done!

 

All the cousins lines up anticipating the gifts!

Aubrey got her much wanted Doodle Bear from us. 

Thanks Jen and Andrew for this unique gift for Easton! Love it!

 

These days the kid table is getting too small.  G.G. definitely is blessed to have her table filled with 8 happy great grandkids

Grammy playing Bradley’s new Buckaroo game. 

 

Reading the paper?!  So funny when kids look like little adults. 

 

The next morning we woke up, packed up and went and met some friends and their little boy and Mimi and Dunka at Check E. Cheese’s.  The kids played hard and we got on the road to go home from there.  They each slept the first 3 hours.  It was a great trip but always hard to tote the kids around from place to place.  One of our New Year’s resolution is not to travel so much in 2012 for holidays.   Let’s see if that one sticks!