Extended Family Christmas Parties

We celebrated Christmas with Missy’s extended families the Friday and Saturday before New Year’s. Both parties were held at the church Missy’s Mom attends (and the church Jon and Missy were married at as well). On Friday night we gathered in the gym with the Doezema side (Missy’s Mom’s family). It was nice since the cousins could play basketball and everything right in the gym.

Elijah hoopin' it up with a hoop just his size.

After dinner Uncle Jeff kept some of the smaller kids (Elijah, the twins, Andrew, second cousin Corbin) occupied in the narthex by playing treasure hunt, where Jeff would hide a basket of flowers and then they would have to find it. Noah and Nathan joined in too once they saw how much fun the kids were having. All the kids would run to one end of the hall and then wait until Uncle Jeff hid the treasure, and then run back out to find it. Elijah would run with them (though of course he was slower) and just get to the end of the hall where they were waiting when it would be time to find the treasure. All the kids would run back out and Eli would turn right around and follow. Then run around and find the treasure and run back down the hall. Little Eli wouldn’t get a break of running! He’d just catch up and then they’d be off again!

No time to chat, Mom, I've got to find this treasure everyone keeps talking about.

The excitement really ramped up for the evening when cousin Tori accidentally pulled the fire alarm. Jon and I were playing a game with the adults and you should have seen Grandma’s face – I thought she was going to have a heart attack! Poor Tori was beside herself and felt so bad! Fortunately other people (who knew what to do) were also in the building that night and were able to call and get the firetrucks turned around before they reached the church. After that excitement the party kind of wound down. Not sure we’ll be able to match that for quite a few years to come!

The Koorndyk Christmas party was the next day, and there were a ton of kids there! A lot of my cousins have children under the age of 5, including three other babies within just a month or two of Elijah. So, for us this was a bit of a baby-centric get-together. No fire alarms at this party, just a lot of good food, and the opportunity to catch up a little with some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have a lot of them, so even after an evening of talking I still think I missed quite a few people. I wish we lived closer so we could spend more time visiting. It was especially nice to see my cousin Jeremy who is heading to Iraq soon. We’ll be praying for you Jeremy!

The church has some air hockey tables, which kept the kids occupied for a while!
Allison and Elijah play on the chair stackers together
(those things are more fun than you would think!)
Did you see this thing shoots water, Mom?! Awesome!
Elijah in his jammies, jumping over the
vacuum hose with Lexi and Tori.
Joshua tells everyone to start picking up!

You heard what Joshua said people! Get movin'!

The other Joshua (same name, same birth day)
is a big helper with the chairs.

Elijah gets extra brownie points from Mom and Dad for being such a flirt with everyone. When it came time to leave he wanted to give everyone kisses, complete with his little, "mmma" noise. He would point at someone and then I'd take him over and he'd kiss them, then he'd look around and point at someone else and give them a kiss, etc. etc. He kissed pretty much everyone in sight, but managed to somehow give cousin Kelly four or five kisses to everyone elses one. What a flirt, kissing the pretty girls over and over! What a cutie pie. Christmas kisses for all and to all a good night!