Big Family Christmas

This year we had Ben's entire family come into town. It used to be that Ben and I were the only ones in the family who lived away, but now only one brother besides Ben lives within a couple of hours of Ben's parents. It's been three years since we've all been together for a holiday. Some of the family stayed with Ben's parents and we had one of his brothers and his family stay with us. We had so much fun with James, Shelley and their four great kids.

Emily, James, Aaron, and Daniel

We were back and forth between our house and my in-laws' home over the days around Christmas. We had lots of family up at our house the Saturday before Christmas and had fun eating pizza, playing cards, watching football, and staying up way too late.

Noah with some cousins - Colin, James, Zach, Jack, Daniel and Aaron (this family is really heavy on the boys!)

Emily and Sarah

Noah and Colin

The Sunday before Christmas we all went to church down in my in-laws' town and took this family picture afterward.

On Christmas Day we opened presents and had breakfast at our house and then headed back down to my in-laws' for the rest of the day. We had a yummy Christmas dinner, opened some more presents, played Apples to Apples (fun game!), and played around outside (nice advantage of Texas winters).

Sam with his Uncle Stan (Sam LOVED Stan and his Uncle James too - I guess they look a lot like his daddy!)

Noah was cracking the family up. At one point, my sister-in-law Shelley said to him, "Noah, I love you so much!" To which Noah replied, "No, I'm Mama's boy." Shelley tried to explain, "Well, you can be Mama's boy but I can still love you too." Noah wasn't buying it and said, "Um, no. I don't think that's possible."

Another time, my 13-year-old nephew Jack stopped Noah in the hall and asked, "Hey, Noah! Can I have a hug?" Noah thought about it for a moment and then said, "Go find my Mama. She'll give you a hug." Jack thought this was hilarious so he found Ben to show him what had happened. He again asked Noah for a hug and this time Noah turned to Ben and said, "Daddy, can you give Jack a hug?"

Despite these two exchanges, Noah (and Sam) really did love having so much family around. They had a great time playing with their cousins, who were all really sweet with them. Ben and I loved having so much family around too!