Our Christmas Celebrations / Marshmallow wars

We were very blessed again this year and had some wonderful Christmas celebrations. Like is family tradition, we had planned to spend Christmas Eve with the VanderHoeven side of the family and Christmas day with the Urvina side of the family. With the winter storm that came on through this area the week of Christmas plans had to change a little bit.

We had planned on heading up to Redmond for the Christmas Eve party and white elephant exchange, but apparently this is what we would have been heading into -

We all decided that we didn't want to be stuck in that kind of mess on Christmas Eve so did a little quick rearranging of plans and headed to Opa's house instead. No one can plan quick meals/parties like we can and within 4 of 5 emails had all new plans.

We ended up with our family of 6, Opa, the Sirrines Sr, and Jr families, including Matthew home from school, and the other VanderHoeven family. It was a little weird to have such a small crew, but we had a great time. Jeff's dad read the Christmas story from the bible which is a great family tradition. To end the evening we had the White Elephant exchange. Back for an encore was the fruitcake that has been rotating every year for about 12 yrs now. Here are some examples of the lovely parting gifts you might have recieved had you joined our party.

Everyone needs some grillz right??

Matthew got something called Pocari Sweat - I didn't taste it, but Jeff did and I was told it actually tasted like canned sweat. I am pretty sure they offered to share, but after being told what it tasted like, I politely declined.
This was also a mighty fine present that Patricia got. We were all pretty jealous.
Pam had their newest baby Bella along for the party and she actually thought that the dog would want to wear this costume, and since that was not such a success, we had to have Ben try it on.
Christmas morning was a fun experience. While it is always fun, and we have come to realize that it will not only be busy, but usually very early - this one was much earlier than expected. All 3 of the older kids slept in one room in order to all get up together. At least one of the otehr came into our bedroom at 1:30am, 3:30am, 4:30am and then we finally gave in at 5:30am.

Most of our pictures turned out really blurry, but we did get a couple. This is the new bike that Santa brought Benjamin. He is very excited for it and can't wait for the warmer weather to be able to go on walks with us.


This would be Josh playing one of his new Nintendo games. He has pretty much had this same expression every free second since then.



We are not sure about Sarah since she hasn't surfaced from texting everyone she knows ever since she got a phone on our cell plan with unlimited texting. Her goal is to outdo her cousin Jacob Sirrine who I think actually set a world record a few months ago with 21,000 texts in one month. She has had a lot of fun with that. Little does she realize how much reality is about to set in with school staring and the parental controls kicking in....hehehehehe.

After the kids had a chance to play with theire new toys and games, we headed to Olympia to see my parents, Joe's family, and my grandparents. Grandpa had bought about 10 marshmallow shooters and the cousins had a great war out in the snow. They had so much fun. I love when all the kids get together and have a chance to play. Michelle Sirrine also joined us by hopping in Joe's car for the trip down. The more the merrier.

Funny enough - this first picture actually goes with both of the last two paragraphs. Marshmallow wars AND Sarah is off to the side texting someone.

Michelle playing the part of Rambo.

Tara and Grandpa
Joe and Gavin