We had a wonderful time in Cincinnati visiting family for Christmas!
Aunt Cookie and Jordan made an impressive Santa cake to kick off the festivities on our first night there:
The kids sang happy birthday to Jesus and decided that Jesus was probably three, hence the three candles.
The cousins hanging out
Gabby and Grace - Gabby was brave enough to fly out to Cincinnati at 88 years old - and we're so glad she did!
The kids played in a cardboard house for most of the week. They colored all over it and had many meals inside their house.
They even had their own little birthday party for Grace in there!
At one point I couldn't find Grace (she is FAST!) and I found her inside the house all by herself, eating Griffin and Jordan's left overs! : )
We went to the Cincinnati Zoo Lights:
Meeting Frosty
Everyone else (notice the babies, whom you can hardly see all bundled up!)
Griffin and Jordan holding hands - they're best buddies!
Grace and Peyton all bundled up
The kids in their matching Christmas pajamas! This is our best attempt at a picture of the four of them!
I know this picture is out of focus, but I love it because it symbolized the priceless chaos that Christmas was for us! All of the kids enjoyed playing with the ornaments on the tree, and there was plenty inspection of presents before Christmas day!
Grace checking out the presents
Christmas Cousins!
Grace (1 year) and Peyton (7 months)
Christmas is so exciting!!!
This was the first year that Griffin believed in Santa and understood the concept. He was excited to bake cookies for Santa:
Rolling out the dough
Griffin and BeBop had fun baking together!
They even wore matching aprons
It's just so silly.
Decorating the cookies is serious work though!
Griffin with his completed cookies
Grace entertained herself during Christmas Eve dinner by trying to stack a chair on this table the whole time
Here we are hanging up the stockings!
Christmas Eve right before bed
Grammy came down for Christmas Eve dinner
Griffin enjoying some hot chocolate on Christmas Eve
Christmas Morning:
Santa came!
Griffin checking out his stocking
Griffin with his digger book and digger present, which he diligently wrote to Santa to request
Griffin and his digger!
He was very excited!
Grace woke up later and Griffin helped Grace open her stocking
Grace and her stocking
She was excited too!
Pop Pop, BeBop, Grace and Griffin, and Phoebe
It was wonderful to spend time with Gabby!
Uncle Jason and Grace
That's one cute Christmas baby!
Grace Christmas Day
Griffin and Grace before opening presents
All the cousins! Their shirts had their initials on them - it was pretty cute.
Again, Christmas day was so exciting!
The kids had so much fun playing with Jason!
At one point Griffin tried to wrap Grace up!
Grace got a rocking horse and loved it!
Jordan and Griffin put on many "performances" where they essentially just ran around going crazy!
Daddy and Grace in their Christmas gear
And a few (okay, a lot) group snapshots:
The girls!
"We're going on a bear hunt ..."
Grace in one of her adorable presents
Griffin and Josh got a joint gift - matching bouncy balls! We had fun playing on them!
The day after Christmas we had a small get-together to celebrate Grace's 1st birthday:
Grace was stylin' in her cute outfit!
Aunt Cookie with the babies
Pop Pop and the birthday girl
Happy Birthday Grace!
My mom and I
Grace's first experience with cake - she liked it, but was much more interested in the ice cream
Griffin loves birthdays and had fun celebrating with her
Grammy was there too!
That's one happy birthday baby!
We celebrated again that night - why not?
Grace's Very Hungry Catepillar Cake - my mom did a great job!
And some random shots from the trip:
We have about ten other pictures like this ... Grace LOVED to hug Peyton! Good thing Peyton is such a good sport, she thought it was funny (most of the time)
Griffin and Jordan had their first sleepover together! They stayed up past 10:00 chatting!
Having breakfast the morning after their sleepover
PopPop made a fort out of mattresses for them - they loved it!
Grace and Daddy opening birthday presents
Aunt Cookie had the genius idea of bringing glow sticks and the kids LOVED it! This was my favorite memory of the trip - all the kids ran around the dark basement for almost an hour and were just enthralled by the glow sticks. Grace especially loved it and ran around with the big kids. She was so excited she squealed the whole time!
Grace in Gabby's chair (Gabby received this for Christmas when she was a toddler)
Gabby had the magic touch to get Grace to lay still long enough to take her bottle
Pop Pop can always make the kids laugh!
Grace mid-change ... she's so wiggly we often change her in stages and this just struck me as funny
The best nieces!
Isn't Peyton adorable?!
Two sisters led to all of this!
Aunt Cookie and Grace
Jordan and Griffin loved to help out in the kitchen
Another attempted group shot
Success! Two babies looking at the camera and not grabbing at each other's faces!
Breakfast time
Fun on the ping pong table
Me and Peyton
Grace got a new fancy coat!
We were sad to say good bye but cherished the memories we made and look forward to next time!
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