Extended family Christmas parties!

Once again this year we were able to pack in both extended families Christmas parties in to the Christmas visit, with the Doezema party on Saturday night, and the Koorndyk party on Christmas Day in the late afternoon. It was fun to see everybody again, and to see all the little kids playing together.

At the Doezema party the younger kids tried to play basketball, but the net was too high, so Uncle Jeff rigged a lower “net” for them out of an empty box and a chair on a table. The kids most enjoyed playing hiding and seek with Grandpa Doug in the hallways of the church. At the end of the night, after we were all cleaned up, the boys wanted to race around the gym, so all the kids took off running, including Elijah. After a few times around the other kids stopped for a break, but Elijah kept running . . . and running . . . and running. He ran for a good 15 minutes straight without stopping. He eventually stopped once, but then took off again immediately, and we had to make him stop so we could all leave. I think running could be in his future, just like Daddy and Uncle Jeremy! We also discovered that Jon can run faster backwards than Grandma can forwards (and that was entertaining to watch). :)

The Koorndyk party was fun too, and the sheer number of little ones to play with made it extra fun for Elijah. He would grab something from the snack table and then be off to play and run with everyone again. There were 12 little ones there, with most of them under the age of 5, so Eli had lots of play companions. Jon played with the kids a lot too, so he had lots of companions as well. He was pushing them around on this riding toy from the church nursery and the kids really thought that was fun. Too soon it was time to go though, and it felt like I hadn’t had much chance to talk to many people (I say that every year, and every year it’s true!). I think we need set up a play date for all the kids since they seemed to be having such a blast together!