Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Koorndyk!

Writing that headline seems a little weird for me – aren’t Grandma and Grandpa Koorndyk my grandparents? But, Elijah has a Grandma and Grandpa Koorndyk too! And over the weekend before New Year’s we headed over to Grand Rapids to celebrate with Missy’s side of the family. We stayed at Grandpa and Grandma’s house, along with my brothers and their families, so it made for a “cozy” weekend (that is the polite way to say crowded). :) But we had so much fun being all together! Elijah was in seventh heaven with all his cousins around to entertain him. And it was a lot easier for Jon and I too, now that Elijah is past the “put everything new into my mouth” phase. We could chat with the adults and relax while Elijah tagged along and played with his cousins!

Grandma said I could rearrange the good silverware, Mom, honest! (She did too!)

The girls have taken over the job, so I'll just cuddle.
Is it my turn yet? You set the timer, didn't you Grandma?

Mmmm, Grandma. I love you! You get lots of kisses!

Napping with Daddy; what a great life!

I didn't get a cage for Christmas, so I'm borrowing Dante's.

Jon, Elijah, and I went over to Grand Rapids on Thursday and stayed through Monday, but it still felt like we didn’t get enough time to visit and relax. On Friday my brother Scott and his family came in and we had a Christmas party that night with Grandma Koorndyk’s side of the family, the Doezemas, then Saturday morning we opened the kids’ presents, Saturday night we celebrated with Grandpa’s side of the family, Sunday morning we had church, Sunday afternoon we opened the adult presents, then Sunday night we relaxed, and Monday after lunch we had to leave! It felt pretty whirlwind.

Some of the highlights of the weekend:

-Opening presents with all the kids was a lot of fun – they all get so excited for their gifts! It’s fun to watch their little faces. Elijah made a haul again, and is having fun with all his toys. I must say, the alphabet train station he received from Grandma and Grandpa is quite the hit. Elijah started combining his sport toy and his train station, and hitting the train station with his bat. Uh oh! Just when I thought we were out of our hitting phase!

All the cousins in their jammies, ready to open presents!
Elijah was ripping as fast as he could to get in his presents.
Even Andrew thinks my train is cool!
Practicing for my NBA career.
I've got to keep these rowdy train animals in line somehow.
Elijah "helping" Uncle Scott open his presents.

-Andrew received this cool game, “Hullabaloo”, that the kids had fun playing. There are little colored cutouts with items on them that you put on the floor, and then this little unit that goes in the middle of the floor tells the kids to “jump to a red triangle”, “slither to a fruit”, etc. etc., until it says something like, “if you’re standing on the toy guitar you’re the winner!” It gets all the kids up and moving and being goofy. Elijah participated a little, but mostly picked up all the cutouts and put them back in the box while the kids were playing. Not the most helpful, but it was cute. :)

Andrew displays perfect Hullabaloo form.

-All of Elijah’s boy cousins have Gameboys and/or Leapsters, so Elijah kept running around with Jon’s Gameboy and sitting by them while they played; trying to be a big boy like them. If they weren't looking he would run around and steal their Gameboys though.

It takes a lot of concentration to play a Gameboy that's not even on.
Lexi points out that Elijah has both Nathan and Andrew's Gameboys. Thief!

-The twins got a Dora castle from us, and all kinds of figures and furniture as part of their present from Grandma and Grandpa. Finally! Some girl toys which I can have fun playing with too! One bad moment for Dora though – Dante the dog found one of the Dora’s on the floor and chewed her crown and one of her hands off! Ouch, that’s got to hurt, Dora!

-After some cajoling, we took a family picture in front of the fireplace. It's pretty hard (even after taking about 15 pictures) to get one with all the adults looking normal, and apparently impossible to get a picture where all the kids are cooperating. So here is the best picture of the bunch - the adults look normal and most of the kids are smiling! To embarass Tori in the future, let it be noted that she was most unhappy to be taking this picture for some reason, and yes, she actually did have this same expression in every single picture we took! Silly girl! I'm going to show this to you when you're 15. :)

The Koorndyk Family 2006

I’m already missing my family and all the kids and it’s only been a week! Elijah really misses his cousins too, so I’m hoping we get to see everyone again really soon!