Their stay was much shorter than I'd originally had in mine, but I can't complain, so we just filled Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a lot of relaxing, eating, and some shopping because we just can't help ourselves. Fortunately, it was just a little.
I loved having 4 extra adults around, and so did the kids. Plenty of song-singing and book-reading.
One afternoon, during the girls' nap, Tiago got out his playdough. I think that's one of his favorite toys to play with. Pretty soon there was quite the group sitting around the table playing with it.
After the kids were in bed, we ENJOYED Christmas Eve dinner... eaten on great-Grandma's china (and no table cloth... somehow forgot to buy any after getting a new rectangle table last year.) Some of these pictures make me laugh because they're not pretty, but show reality: a kitchen full of people and counters full of stuff. The prime rib my mom made was delicious, and we had an endless supply of bubbly to drink because the grocery store was selling it for $.75/bottle. We loaded up big time.
My parents were kind enough to do most of the dishes while we hauled down presents.
About a week before Christmas our tree started to dry up and die. We just kept hoping it would hang on til the big day, which it kind of did. But it was pretty sad looking and dropping needles everywhere. Sunday, after unwrapping all the gifts, we took off the ornaments and hauled it outside. The whole room just felt better (cleaner!), and there was zero sadness in getting rid of it, even though it was technically still Christmas.
Jenna had a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by Christmas... which left her several hours of reading wherever she could fit it in. Pretty sure that's what she's doing here.
Stuffing Stockings:
We started watching White Christmas, then half-way through decided it wasn't worth finishing. (Although everyone seemed to enjoy singing "Sisters Sisters".) Instead, we opened all the adult gifts. Here they are showing off a beautifully wrapped present, obviously from my mom because I never even managed to buy ribbon this year. Some highlights (for me) were a new set of frying pans, a suitcase (we threw out all of ours with broken wheels), and a ginormous blanket scarf.
The kids still didn't really "get" Christmas. Tiago woke up pretty early, but I gave him my phone to watch a movie and we didn't start Christmas until about 7:30 when we told him he should go see what Santa brought. Church was at 10, so we opened some gifts (like this huge train set), ate breakfast, and got fancy for church. We volunteered to sing as a family, so we pulled out the "Noel Chorus" which we've sung about a million times.
This helicopter was a big hit with Tiago... and it was a $3 yard sale find.
Suarez family 2016! Next year's goal: 1 kid looking at the camera
both girls drinking a smoothie
It was a very merry Christmas indeed.
Early the next morning our house guests snuck out and closed the door behind them. My parents dropped Jenna off at the airport before driving home. Despite good weather conditions, i-80 was closed and they had to wait a few hours before getting on (wind-related issues). But they made it.
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