Christmas Eve to New Year's Day

My grandma's birthday falls on Christmas Eve, so we all headed over there for lunch to celebrate - 

And eat cookie cake!

Maya posing with the birthday girl -

My beautiful 89-year-old with two of her great grandchildren -

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve celebration with Cas' family, and my kids stayed awake the latest I think either of them has ever been up - or certainly Maya's latest bedtime - 10:30pm!  So Christmas morning, Maya was up bright and early, but Collin finally got out of bed at 9am, after Cas and I were pacing.  He was surprised to see Santa's footprints and the gift he requested - the beast from Beauty and the Beast.

But wait, there were more footprints leading to the backyard.  Collin "acted like Batman and solved the mystery."

The footprints stopped on the driveway, but the note pointed behind the pool -

Collin apparently asked Santa for both the beast and April O'Neal, a ninja turtle character.  So Collin's response to our question of what could the footprints be leading to was "maybe it's April O'Neal!"

It wasn't April, instead it was a trampoline!  

Jumping - and falling - away!

I got in on the action in my robe, flipping around.  A few days later I was on the trampoline doing all kinds of jumps and flips, remnants of my gymnastics days (though significantly less impressive than my tricks when I was eleven).   And then I jumped over Collin, jerked mid-air to make it seem scarier to Collin . . . and cricked my neck.  I had to get straight off the trampoline and straight for the heating pad.  Pathetic!

Who was more excited about the trampoline, the kids or the mommy?

Posing on the Christmas present -

Maya loves to jump, and has learned the word "jump outside" to let us know it's trampoline time!

A few days after Christmas, Uncle Tony, Aunt Elida, Nico and Lorenzo came over.  Maya loves her cousins, especially Lorenzo who is at the perfect hugging level!

Lorenzo doesn't have the same love of hugging that Maya does!

We had a wild and crazy New Year's Eve - we started the morning at library story hour and ended the night with s'mores.

Cas passed on the s'mores, but Collin and I went to town!

On New Year's day, we had four of our couple friends and their kids over for lunch.  It was cold and rainy from Christmas to New Year's, and so it was nice to let the kids burn energy together and the grown-ups have encouraging conversations.  Six years ago there were just five couples - and on New Year's Day there were 10 adults and 13 kids, all five and under!