Christmas at Eastmonds 2006

Christmas at our Home, 2006

Since a picture is worth a lot of words, I'll merely caption the following photos in order to let you know what went on here. It all began December 23rd with our Open House.

This photo of Andrew is on Sunday afternoon, December 24th. He seems in a particularly observant mood.

 

Alex and Peter. Before they found the wooden train set (in pix below), Peter had set up the electric raceway in his bedroom, and he and Alex became fast friends.

Christmas Eve morning, we all went to church then came home and napped. In the evening, we decided to head down to our town's center where the old Mission Inn was all decked out in lights.

There's some urban art there on a defunct storefront where we all posed. Without thinking about it, it looks like we coordinated our outfits (and diaper bag) in red, white blue and black.

Alex never met a light switch he didn't like. Peter leaned him over so he could operate the switch in the middle of the "art."

 

Annie, Kristen's sister, who attends Boise State, joined us for Christmas.  Posing in front of shopping bag lights at the Mission Inn.

And here's Peter's small wooden train set, received one Christmas when he was about Alex's age. The story goes that his mother was curious to see if he really would like it, and so one afternoon before Christmas she got it all out. He did like it, and had a hard time parting with the train set when he went down for his nap. Then she gathered it up and hid it. When he awoke, she pretended like it didn't exist. [Ed. note: of course, now I know that Peter was way too smart for that sort of thing, but when they're three, how do you know this?] On Christmas Night, after playing with it all day, the three-year old Peter picked it up, put it away in its blue cloth bag and took it with him to bed, refusing to part with it again.

Chad and Peter went through a host of boxes in the garage to find this, also finding Peter's origami collection. For the next two days, anyone and everyone who walked by this train was queried by Alex: "Want to play?" I think the top adult time was 20 minutes, so we rotated a lot.

Annie and Andrew

Alex, in his "Tigger" pajamas, ready for bed.

Christmas morning, ready to open gifts.

A tradition in our home is to put the last piece on the Advent Calendar before going in to the tree. Alex obliges.

Peter with two toys: whatever is in his hand, and his nephew Andrew.

Alex shows me that their family received the DVD "Cars" for Christmas.

We all received hand-tipped family Sessions Coats of Arms for Christmas. Thanks, Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma!

Annie's working on getting her new camera out of the hard plastic wrapping--the first challenge of any Christmas gift from a store. Or maybe she's just getting the low-down on how it all works.

Enjoying a book.

Alex opens a gift as big as he is.

Are we through, Grandpa?

And now, back to the train. Want to play?

Christmas Dinner (part1)

Christmas Dinner (part 2)  After the meal, Dave and I took dinner to a family who was supposed to come visit us, but their baby fell ill. While we were gone, Chad did most all the dishes--another Christmas gift!

But before we all left the table, here's a beautiful shot of Chad's family in the afternoon light.

Merry Christmas, Dad. Merry Christmas, son.

 

Christmas Open House 2006

For some reason, Dave and I decided to get in the spirit of Christmas by inviting everyone we wanted to (who was within shouting distance) to our 2006 Christmas Open House. I spent two days making the invitations and mailing them. That effort knocked out any possibility of sending out Christmas cards, at least on my watch.

Below are random photos, taken when I could extricate myself from kitchen fun/disasters. (Are they really any different?)

(from L:) Laurel Strong, Chris and Mike Grant

Peter, Sue Sewell, John Crockett (hiding behind the chandelier), Pat and Tracy Poor

Tom and Karen Burbach (waving to the camera), with Jan Hamilton in foreground

Susan Straight and Jenn Christensen

Alex, zipping through the adult legforest.

Rosalyn and Gary Poole

Tracy Poor, Yours Truly, Susan and Dave

Chad, Susan (holding Andrew) and Kristen

Baby Andrew

When Chad and Kristen headed off to their holiday work party (December 9), I had the chance to take care of Andrew and Alex.

But first stop was celebrating my brother's birthday (#51) with him. I won't tell you how old I am.

Kristen, just before leaving. Notice how content Andrew looks in her arms. He was good for me, but I knew that HE knew that I wasn't Mom.

Chad and Kristen.

This is during the clothes change episode. I couldn't resist snapping a photo of him, as he was pretty quiet, but alert.

I brought the movie Cars for Alex to see, and it was a good thing, as I was pretty busy keeping Andrew happy. Then when that finished, time for bed for Alex, but we couldn't find his binky. His parents assured me he'd be happy using one of Andrew's, but when I offered it, Alex would shake his head and say, "No. Andrew's." After several futile attempts to sing him songs, lay beside him to get him to sleep (Andrew was napping in the bassinet), I went foraging. Success! and Alex cuddled into bed with his blanket and newly found binky. Then Andrew woke up again, and all this made me realize that raising children is the work of the young. But I had fun spending some one-on-one time with the newest grandchild.

Trip to Kingman

Trip to Kingman, AZ--Thanksgiving Weekend 2006

Of course, I had to get a photo or two of Barbara and David's family, and we start here with Riley and Barbara.

Then Riley and Dave.

Although Keagan greeted us in regular clothes, within a few minutes, she had changed into one of her princess dresses. The first one was white (same one she wears in later photos) with netting and puffed sleeves. Dave remarked she looked like Snow White. She disappeared, came back out in this one, and told Dave: "Grandpa, THIS one is Snow White."

While we were putting the finishing touches on Thanksgiving Dinner, I handed Riley a raw green bean. (He has no teeth.)

He had a good time gnawing on it.

This was an apron I had purchased long long ago on one of my trips to England when the children were small. It was fun to see it on Keagan again.

After a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings, Riley was all smiles. Even though he didn't eat any.

Then it was put up the tree. Dave carted it in in sections, and the family helped fluffing out the branches. According to one of Dave's stories, this one was a piece of cake, compared to the trees his family used to buy before he left on his mission. He stayed up until the late late hours of the nights, carefully fluffing out the branches on that earlier tree. When he left on his mission, his Dad bought a new one, realizing that without Dave, no one had the patience or perserverance to set it up.

Then Keagan couldn't stand it anymore and wanted to open the presents we brought. Her mother said it was fine to open up her birthday present early. We brought her an outfit.

Saturday morning, hanging around by the decorated Christmas tree. (Notice the white princess dress.)

Good-bye pictures, as we're getting ready to leave. You've seen the group photo with the kids and Dave and I, earlier in this blog.

 

Mohave National Preserve, where we tried to look at stars.

(This belongs at the end:) On the way home, the sunset was beautiful and Dave and I had 4 hours of uninterrupted conversation--so pleasant, such a nice finish for our weekend. About halfway home, I commented on the stars, and on a whim, we turned off the road and drove for a few minutes to a deserted section. Turned out it was the Mohave National Preserve. We tried to take some time-lapse photos of the glorious display of stars and the Milky Way, but this road was a cut-off to Baker and had far more traffic than we'd first thought. Plus it was really cold. So back to the car, Christmas carols and conversation.