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!

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!

Opening Presents with Mom and Dad!

After all our present-opening festivities with Jon’s parents, it was time for Elijah to have Christmas with his parents! The day after Christmas we had a nice dinner by candlelight and then opened our gifts for each other. Right before gifts I set up my tripod, camera, and camera remote, and we decided try and get a family picture in front of the tree. We weren’t really sure how it was going to work, since there wouldn’t be anyone behind the camera to get Elijah to smile, but we decided to give it a go. Turns out that Eli loves when the camera light flashes and beeps really fast (right before it goes off) and if we said “Smile!” then he would!

Say cheese!

They're kissing me! They're kissing me!

Elijah figured out pretty quickly that the little remote Mommy was pushing made the camera go – so he of course decided that he HAD to hold it. He was able to push the button and get the camera to go, so that was good for a few minutes (and about 20 pictures) of fun. As a result we have quite a few nice pictures of our little family.

I managed to snag the remote! Hehe!

Once the present-opening began we didn’t need to convince Eli to rip right in. In fact, he wanted to open ALL the presents for us. :) He got some Veggietales worship cds, some books, a puzzle, a driving toy, and a new push-n-go train. He loves the toys and was mildly interested in the cds and books. Predictable. :)

A driving toy! I'm ready to go crusin' for some chicks now.
What's in this thing? And who put so much tape on it?

A toy train! Choo choo!

Mom didn't think I'd actually be able to put the pieces back in without lots of practice. I'll show her!

It was neat to have Christmas with just our little family. I think last year Jon and I squeezed in Christmas the two of us while Elijah was sleeping, but from now on we’ll be having family celebrations of our own. Our first real Christmas celebration with Elijah was a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to more and more years of enjoying Christmas with our boy. Merry Christmas!

Present opening is done, but I found the remote so it must be picture time again!

I'm going to take one of me and Mom!
The Schneider family in front of the tree - Christmas 2006.
(picture courtesy of Elijah, who snapped it with the remote control)

Giving kisses!

Eli has become quite a "lover" recently. He has become very fond of giving kisses to people, and even to objects!

After we decorated our Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago, Eli was admiring one of the low-hanging ornaments... and he leaned forward and gave it a kiss! He then proceeded to move around the tree and kiss just about every ornament that he can reach! It's really cute to see him doing it. He even makes a "mmma" sound as he's giving each kiss, which makes it even cuter.

Eli also bestows his kisses in a more appropriate manner, as well. Whenever it was time to go "night-night" or "bye-bye" over Christmas vacation while visiting the Koorndyk family and while visiting my mom's and dad's places, Eli would make it clear (by pointing and "talking") that he wanted to kiss each person in the room in turn before it was time to go, and he would proceed to do so as Missy or I carried him around to each person. Quite cute, and very endearing to the relatives as well! Way to, er, "kiss up", Eli!


Eli gives a kiss to cousin Lexi (or is it Tori?)

You can't take that away from me, I love it!

Eli has developed a cute "defensive" trick recently. When Missy or I go to take something away from Eli that he shouldn't have (recent examples include a half-full glass of Diet Coke and a TV remote control), Eli will hold the object up to his cheek, lean his head against it, and suck his thumb with his other hand. The overall effect says "how could you take this from me, I love it, and I look so cute holding it"!

Just picture Linus from Peanuts holding his blanket until I can get a picture up of Eli doing this!



It's pretty funny when Eli does this, because he does really look cute doing it, even if it's a half-full can of Diet Coke instead of a cute blanket or stuffed animal that he's snuggling!