The View From Crescent Hill: 2013

Christmas celebration in Ohio

On the day after Christmas, we loaded up the car and headed to Ohio for a visit with Omi and Opaw.

We were pretty excited to see this little guy walking!

Santa visited Omi and Opaw's house as well and our kids were quite spoiled!

The chaos of opening gifts with kids continued. Harper loved tearing the paper off, Andrew tried to "help" anyone who dared attempt to open a gift, and they got so many fun things from everyone.

…Like this alligator sleeping bag that Andrew slept in that very night.

He rolled around in it for a little while pretending that the alligator was eating him. Harper was a bit concerned at first:)

Joe got a remote control helicopter (you can see it right up on the ceiling) and Harper was fascinated with it.

The helicopter is a blur in this picture but it flew all over the house sometimes startling a few people, ahem, who didn't know it was coming their way...

Riding on Opaw's shoulders is fun!

Diddy patiently played whatever 3-year old games Andrew could devise.

The next day was cold outside so we decided to have some fun at Opaw's church. What could be better than wide open spaces to run through?

Testing out the remote control car in the hall.

We raided the preschool rooms and found a few fun toys for the kids to ride on.

Andrew also got some roller-skates for Christmas and had fun flying around the rooms on them.

I turned around to see Nate's dad pushing these 2 in a wheelchair…they thought it was about the greatest thing ever. I think we all got quite a workout playing!

The next morning was Omi's 34th birthday:) so we went to brunch to celebrate!

Beau and Harper charmed all the people seated around us with their smiling and waving. It was such a fun visit (and too quick!) We packed a lot into Christmas week but made so many fun memories and got to visit with old friends and family too. It was a wonderful Christmas just being with all the people we care about.

Christmas Celebration #4--Christmas morning!

Christmas morning began with a 6:30 walkup call from Andrew. He was clearly excited to see if Santa had come (and a little impatient to wait on us to get up and to get Harper up). We came downstairs and checked out the empty plate of cookies before they tore into their presents.

Andrew got a book, a guitar, a couple "trucks" and some paints/art supplies.

Nate tuning his new guitar.

Harper got a baby doll, a Madeline book, and an animal puzzle.

Opening up their stockings

Playing his guitar along with a Bob Dylan concert/song on youtube

Christmas Celebration #3

Christmas Eve night we went to my parents' house again. They hosted us a lot this week. Some of our other extended family always comes over on this night too for soup and appetizers.

Family photos in front of the tree

Sisters:)

Andrew decided to photo-bomb Laura and Josh's picture:)

My parents with all their grandchildren!

Harper loves "Sugarfoot" our old rocking horse.

Uncle Mark decided to play too…once again, the kids had so much fun together.

Grandpop and Harper

We finally got the kids tucked away so Santa cold come…Andrew left him quite a few cookies to eat and was a little concerned Santa might try to come upstairs. We assured him that Santa comes so quickly he wouldn't even see him if he tried to. He was so excited for Christmas morning.

Christmas celebration #2

On Christmas Eve morning, Mary, Amanda and Erin (plus husbands and kids!) came over to catch up. While it was a wild few hours with all the little ones it was so much fun to watch our kids play together.

I was happy to hold Julianne!

All of the kiddos gathered in the playroom…they had so much fun together.

Amanda and her sweet baby boy Calvin

The girls on the stairs

Cal was the happiest baby ever and content to sit and watch the chaos all around him.

Erin reading to Leena, Harper and Emmylou

I hope they'll be good friends someday just like their moms:)

And finally…all of us and our kids in one picture. 20 years of friendship and 9 kids later (ranging in age from 10 days to 6 years old!)

Christmas celebration #1

I'm going to have to break down the posts into Christmas celebrations because I think we had so many! We stretched the celebrating out over a full week. On the 23rd, we headed over to my parents' house for dinner and the kids all opened their presents. Erin and Mark arrived that day with Leena and 10-day old Julianne!