Christmas with a Pile of Kids

I'm using that phrase because when Momo used it on the phone yesterday, I had to laugh! I think it's the mental picture. But look at this pile of kids! Cuties, aren't they?

Yesterday evening, we celebrated Christmas with some of our closest friends. Well, we used to be close, now we have a pile of kids. You make sacrifices... We are four families with six kids. The oldest four are all two. So for obvious reasons, we typically try to keep our expectations low when we all get together. Inevitably, someone is grumpy or sick or sleepy or hurt. You never know what is going to happen. At least for our family, this year's party was far above expectations. Because of her week, Sophia was the grumpy one. But it didn't seem to spoil the fun for her or anyone else. The children played wonderfully together, giving us adults a little space occasionally. I was also amazed at how things actually seemed to work out for the guys, then the girls, to get some time to engage in adult conversation!! That never happens with the kids around.

But, really, it was just so much fun to watch all of these kids enjoying their friends and the Christmas festivities. Here are Ava and Jimmy hanging out.

Presents were exchanged, and all of the kids were so sweet. They were each thrilled with their gifts, and so grateful to the giver. It was a treat to see them being such big kids.

We could only assume that Sophia was being blinded by all the flashes because she found Jimmy's sunglasses and kept them on for much of the evening.
And I'm putting this one on here just because I like Erick in blue.