Koorndyk Christmas

Me and my brothers and their families and Mom and Dad had such a good time all being together over the Christmas holiday, that I can’t even begin to tell everything that happened. All of us were staying at my parent’s house pretty much the whole time, so we were packed in, but the cousins loved being together, and Elijah was constantly entertained (maybe 6 kids isn’t such a bad idea? Naw, don’t think so.) Here are the highlights:

• Jon hooked up his Wii to the TV in the living room so the kids could play games out there, and the three older boys loved playing Super Mario Kart together. Aunt Missy played a bit too; even Elijah tried to get in on the action. The boys were so cute with Eli, who just held the controller and didn’t make his car move. They would tell Eli he was doing great, and at the end of the race that he won. Eli would throw his hand in the air, cheer, and say, “I won!” Natey told Grandma, “He’s not really winning; we’re just telling him that.” It was cute though when one time Elijah got his car to move a little bit. The boys all started shouting, “He’s moving! Yay, Eli, you’re moving!”

• We lost power in a storm on Saturday night at 3 in the morning, so we had breakfast by candlelight, which the kids thought was pretty cool. We got power back in the late afternoon of Sunday, just in time to open the kids’ Christmas gifts (and not freeze our butts off with the furnace not working!).

• There was a rousing game of Uno Attack, which was quite hilarious to watch. Elijah was playing with Grandma, and all the kids would just go nuts when the launcher would spit out a bunch of cards to one of them.

• Elijah had a transportation Christmas, getting Mack from the Cars movie, two Lightening McQueen cars, a big Lightening McQueen, a Thomas the Tank Engine Aqua doodle set, and a CAT bulldozer! He loved them all; though I think the gift he was the most excited about was the play food which the girls got to go in their new play kitchen. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t HIS and why we weren’t opening them!

• On Christmas Eve we had a fantastic dinner all together (14 of us around the big table – I don’t know where the baby is going next year!). Then afterwards it was early to bed for the younger kiddies and the adults opened presents. No pictures of that though (we’re just not as cute as the little ones). The boys stayed around to watch us open presents and all of us thought it was nice to have the presents shuttled to us by the youngins. Using child labor to hand us lazy bones our presents is a great idea.

• Grandma had the great idea to make snowflakes out of paper, and it only took four adults to decipher the directions from Martha Stewart on how to fold the paper. The kids were interested for a bit, but not nearly as long as the adults were. Jeff made a snowflake with the Michigan block M on it, and Scott made all kinds of intricate snowflake designs. I went traditional for a bit and then decided to do some contemporary designs, and made one with polka dots (which the girls thought was cool). Grandma and the girls hung some of the snowflakes in Elijah’s room to surprise him when he came home from celebrating Christmas with the Schneider side of the family, and they look really pretty.

• Overheard by me – Lexi was explaining to Elijah that she was his cousin. Elijah replied, “No, you not my cousin. Andrew my cousin.” Lexi tried to tell him that Andrew and Lexi were both his cousins, but he couldn’t quite grasp the concept. Apparently, though, by the time you are four you understand perfectly!

• The adults had a great time playing games together (I think we played every night!), and spending 5 days together, which is a treat. Uncle Scott got sick at the end of the visit, so that wasn’t so great though. He missed out on some of the gaming, so we’re going to have to have some makeup sessions I think. Let’s start planning our next get together!