Christmas in New York 2013
Tuesday morning we all headed to the mall to take pictures with Santa. The kids had fun window shopping and telling us everything they wanted!
Fun to be back with these people!
Zeke and Ellie were immediately back to the attached at the hip relationship from the summer. They were so happy to be together again! Love these pictures!
Not all the kids were excited about sitting with Santa, but we got them all in there
Just missing Ez (he came two days later with Richie)
There was a candy store right by the line for Santa, so Poppy treated the kids to some goodies. Enjoying their candy necklaces
Happy Danny boy!
Checking out the fishes in the little fountain. Cora wanted to jump in there with them
I loved the cousins together and watching them have fun together.
Later that evening, Christmas Eve, we all went to a nursing home to sing Christmas carols. This is a Psillos Family tradition, and it's a good one! We brought balloons to hand out, we all wore Santa hats, and Hannah brought her keyboard to accompany our singing!
Zeke loved being the balloon holder
We just walked from room to room singing to whoever we could find
Most everyone loved having us there and really enjoyed the songs and the Christmas spirit!
It was great for us all to give this service and to bring some Christmas cheer to these people!
Later that night it started snowing! We were all so excited thinking we would have a white Christmas the next morning!
He loved playing on the trampoline with Hannah and the girls, but got cold and didn't last too long. I think he has his Mom's thin blood. Livy and Rae were crazy and playing outside in the snow barefoot! They were just too excited to stop to put shoes on
Grandma Ede came over for dinner that night and we got a picture of her with the great-grandchildren (minus Ez) in their new jammies from Grammy
Cassie and family was in town too and came over to hang out that night, so we had to get a pic of all the kids together, in age order from right to left, except Colbie who should be at the end but is on Rachel's lap
The kids put out some goodies for Santa, we read some scripture stories and then got the kids to bed at a reasonable time.
Christmas morning! Classic picture on the stairs
Richie and Ezra got in on a flight very early Christmas morning. We were so happy to have them there!
Danny was so happy to have all his siblings home again!
The kids
And us older kids too
It was quite the present opening fiasco, wrapping paper everywhere!
Richie and Erin #3 on the way!! So exciting!
One of Hannah's gifts from Mom was a "coat of many colors" for being the favorite child. It's kind of a running joke that Hannah is the favorite. Mom was so proud of this coat she made out of her bath robe and colored duct tape! It was pretty funny!
I decided to finally wake Ez up so he didn't miss it all completely. He just looked so cute sleeping, it was hard to do. But he woke up happy and excited to see everyone
Christmas pajamas, made by yours crafty Erin!
The aftermath
After all the gift opening was done, the kids had fun playing with each other and some of their new toys
They were having so much fun with each other ad cracking up!
Then it was time to just veg out for a bit and hang with Poppy on the couch
Then craft time with play doh
Later that day we got to see Karen for a minute but not her babies, we had a puker in the house so she kept them safe in the car!
Richie's lack of sleep from his red eye flight and a full day of activity and commotion was starting to catch up with him. Poor guy could hardly keep his eyes open
Ezra loves his Rae and Rae loves her Ezra!
Lots of time spent up in Danny's bed! The gathering place
One day we all went to the Long Island Children's Museum. It was a pretty cool place with lots of stuff for the kids to explore and learn about.
Ezra took a turn on the mic too
Some late night Rook playing
Eating lunch together and watching a movie
Putting Danny boy to bed and hanging out
Ez got to play on top of the bed
And had fun playing with Poppy and Grammy
We did our white elephant gift exchange one night. Each couple brought one good gift and one joke gift. It's always a lot of fun and lots of laughing!
Richie choose the big box to open, and ended up with crappy neck pillows from the gift exchange about 4 years ago.
Charlie ended up with some chocolate tools
Josh picked our good gift. A tissue box full of cash!
Good times!
Someone got the game "Telestrations" so we all played it. It's actually a really fun game and we were all laughing really hard at some of the drawings and what they started out as what they ended up as. The best one was the starting word of "open house" and the final guess was "apocalypse" haha
The kids always have so much fun playing with their cousins and everyone seems to get along so they are always having a good time. Always makes me sad we don't live near them so these kids can grow up together
One last stop at Bellagio's for some pizza!! MMmmmmm
Rich and Erin getting ready to leave, Zeke was sad to be leaving his Ellie and Ellie did not want her buddy to leave.
Hugs goodbye
Had a great time with Grammy and Pop! Always sad to say goodbye
It was a fun trip home and great to be with the family for the holiday!!! Thanks Grammy and Pop for providing a great Christmas for us all! Great memories made!
Richie & Ezra's Birthday
(Another one of Erin's stolen posts! Thanks Erin, maybe you should start charging me!)
Richie and Ezra's birthdays are on December 30th, so while we were home in New York we had a little party for them. We all just went to the church to play and run around to celebrate the birthday boys.
Ezra was having a great time crawling around, watching all the kids run and play
My two handsome birthday boys! (Erin's post)
We had balls, balloons, and nerf guns being shot left and right!
Pop even pulled out the rollers from under the stage to give the kids a ride
Making an alliance with Uncle Danny
It was a lot of fun with kids screaming excitedly and running everywhere to avoid being tagged
But then Zeke was ready for some birthday cake, so he put on the hat to give us all a hint
Danny's birthday is January 12th, and he LOVES the Happy Birthday song, so we all sang to him a few times first. Look at the joy on his face!! His favorite song with his favorite people!
Ellie and Zeke were right there to blow out the candles for Uncle Dan
Then it was time to sing to Ezra. We got him ready in the hat, but he did not like it
We tried giving him a taste of the cake to get him in the mood, but he wasn't really into that either
Tried to get a quick family pic with our birthday boy
I think he was a little overly tired by this point, and still a little traumatized by the shark, so he wasn't really in the cake smashing mood
He pretty much just cried through it all while everyone tried to make him smile or laugh, but it was not working
Poor birthday boy. Such a sad cake smash for such a happy boy
The whole gang
I tried giving Ezra some cake again the next day, but he still wasn't that into it
