Christmas 2016

We started our Christmas vacation with a 10 hour drive to the ever-gray skies of western NY. For the first time EVER, the drive was super easy and felt way shorter than it was. Kent was on his best behavior by far and I didn't do anything differently. For one, he had his favorite instruments with him (minus the kazoo, let's not fool ourselves) and we spent a lot of time listening to Christmas music on the radio which he tried to sing along to. Between music and some toys, looking out the window, a little nap and lots of snacks, boom we were there! He's getting better at accepting long car rides without one of us in the backseat next to him. Whew!

It was so lovely to hang out with family and enjoy the benefits of extra hands and eyes on all of the kids. Our oldest nieces and nephews are old enough to look out for the littler ones, so that put everyone's minds at ease. Even though he just had lots of grandparent and cousin time in the summer, for Halloween and Thanksgiving, Kent seemed to have grown that much more in his vocabulary and wherewithal that it was neat to see him interact with everybody. He was also very gentle with the dog and cats, though one time he came to me crying his poor heart out because Kit had hissed at him. Kent wailed "he screamed! he screamed!" pointing at the cat as if he had experienced the biggest emotional betrayal of his life.

Here are some pictures of our various Christmas celebrations.
Matt and our oldest niece talking about life. Or presents. Or the dessert table.

The inevitable picture of Kara eating JUST as I snap a picture. Every time.

 Yummy food!

Matt and his brother went to see the Bills play the Dolphins. It was a close game and went into overtime. Bummer that the Bills lost.

Special delivery! 

Waiting for Christmas brunch.

 I found these two taking a break from the chaos of 8 cousins playing together. How sweet is that?!?!?

 Caleb loved giving Kent hugs and Kent loved receiving them.

 Playing and sharing. It's true! I definitely saw a lot of turn taking and sharing. I love these kids.

It was extremely hard to take pictures and enjoy the moment (and help Kent open gifts), so I chose to put the camera down and take it all in. Here he is opening some furniture to his hand-made totally awesome farm house for his little people.

He played with it all morning today and told me that the teacher stepped on caca because she stood on the toilet. I think it went something like: "Da teacher stand on toilet. Caca on da feet! STINKY CACA!!!" I helped him problem solve and put the teacher in the bathtub.

Here are all 8 grandkids. Best picture of them all!!

Here the family is recreating a family photo from the late 80s. It was a spontaneous pose so there was no time to recreate hair dos and outfits. Maybe next time.

Kent was obsessed with these roller skates. They are from Matt's childhood and even I remember playing with some like this. Surprisingly, Kent rolled around on them (slowly) and didn't wipe out.

Kent went sledding for the first time and he loved it. Afterwards, he got his first "hot" (lukewarm) chocolate. He said "mmmm! mmmm!" after 2 or 3 sips and then didn't want any more of it. What in the world?!?!

Later in the week, it snowed for two days straight and it was so spectacular and so intense at the same time. Again, we went sledding all together but Kent didn't have as much fun because of the biting wind and the snowflakes hitting his face so hard. He wore his sunglasses, but it just wasn't enough. It was so much fun to see his cousins take running dives down the hill and make snow angels. It was Bo's very first snow experience and he liked it plenty. With about 18 inches on the ground, we thought we would be able to go to the kid gym or on our date, but luckily it was possible. Special thanks to Matt C. and Fred for snow blowing driveways and digging out cars!
Here comes fearless Zach!

 Steady... easy...

 Our little monkey finally took a break from the trampoline....

And an extra special thank you to Fred and Pat who took such good care of Kent and enjoyed some bonding time while Matt and I had not one, but TWO fabulous dinner dates over the week. What a treat!!