C (Christmas, aka Chaos)

Our traditional Christmas photo. Santa and the kids. Would have tried to fit Heather's tummy into the picture, but time and space presented some logistical problems. As it was, we had to use some pretty blatant candy-cane bribery (note the look on Jamie's face) to capture this brief (but beautiful) moment!



Cara and Jonathan made all our meals on Christmas eve day, including a wonderful feast for supper. Meanwhile, the cousins had a blast together, including snuggling up in one single chair to watch a movie (The Iron Giant). Elizabeth hid behind Micah for the whole movie, because she finds it scary. Micah told her he would protect her. How sweet is that!?!?!



Christmas eve was a chaos of craziness! Calvin played the piano; Josh played the guitar; Ron played the trumpet; and the rest of us sang along for lots of wonderful Christmas carols. And the kids DANCED and DANCED and never has celebration been more exuberant. This is the best I could do at getting them all (including grandbaby #6) in one picture at the same time. Wish I had the ability to include some video footage!!! Elizabeth displayed natural twinkle-toe ballet technique, and also surprised us all with an apparently innate ability to play the trumpet! Meanwhile, Kazan (who didn't make it into this shot) was in HEAVEN.



Speaking of chaos... here is Christmas morning at Grandma and Grandpa's house!



And an aerial view...!