Tis the season (Part 1)

Our Christmas vacation was eventful! I am pretty sure we have about 400 new pictures loaded on to our computer from the trip...therefore, there will be many blogs.

This year was the year for Christmas at the DeFreese house. My sisters who got married in the last couple years made it so their Christmas rotation was the same as ours. So this year all of the DeFreese kids (and families) were home for Christmas. It was a packed house! It was pretty chaotic (mainly thanks to our wild 2 year old and teething baby), but pretty darn fun! We've always had fun as a family, but having Eve, Sean, Matt, James, and Shane join our family has made the holidays even more special.

Emily, the boys, and I flew out a week before the men. Thank heavens I had Emily on that flight! We were early to the airport, but the lady wrote the wrong gate number on our tickets, so we were sitting at the wrong terminal for a while...when we finally put two and two together we RAN to our gate. Em took off running with Lincoln. Koby started chasing after her crying, "Wait for me! Wait!" People were staring at Koby wondering if his mother abandoned him. Haha. I was a little behind trying to catch up with him, lugging a stroller, two carry-ons, and a car seat. Oh the joys of traveling with kids.

This is what went down the week before Christmas...

We met Ivy, the newest cousin and only grand daughter, and hung out with the family...

We decorated the tree...

We went and watched our little wrestling champ, Ryder, pin some kids at his wrestling match...The pictures of Ryder are on my mom's camera :(

Linc and I went out to dinner with my friends from high school...

 

We took the little guys bowling. Ryder won, but Koby came in close second...his daily practice paid off :)

We played swords, superheros, had pillow fights, wresting matches, etc. Six little grandsons wore us adults out! We got to just hug and cuddle sweet little Ivy.

 

We ate reindeer pancakes and decorated cookies for Santa with Aunt Shannon...

We They ate some nutritious octopus ...

We wore out grandpa and grandma...but Linc made up for it by snuggling with them...

Then the men came to town. They decided it would be fun to go off-road up a snowy mountain with the little, old Honda. We did indeed get stuck, but the men managed to save the day and took us on a pretty hike...

And we all overate, but especially Chloe, the cat, all thanks to Koby...