Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, we all met at Rodney and Julie's church house. We are just getting to big! We love all the family. I've got the pictures backwards, and I don't want to swap them. So Backwards!

Before we called it a night, we exchanged cousin gifts. Usually we do this in July during the family reunion, but with so many cousins together, we did a second exchange this year.

Kylee received make up and still loves it! Karla got a recorder, and she has been asking for one since her last one broke. Can you tell she is hugging it? Kaylyn has the biggest sweet tooth in our family--and she too loved the candy. We enjoyed giving dress ups to Arrianne, a cape to Kevin, and books to Trevor. It was chaos, but it was good chaos.

We then had the annual pinata. This year we did something new though. They made one for the kids and one for the grown up kids. I think the grown up kids enjoyed it more than the little kids. And I'm sure it brought back a lot of memories. In the first few pictures you can see them lining up.

Todd Rodney Anthony setting up fo Janices turn ToddEmily Mom--even with her broken arm.Grandma and Grandpa Cook even got in on the fun.

They put chicken wire in the adult one. Which made it fun and challenging for us. This was what was left after we pulverized it. And I think in the end we finally dumped out the candy--still intact even.


Here is the kids pinata.

Kevin or Kyle. I'm still working on it. Kaylyn. Aunt Trudy holds Alice. Karla

Kylee. Karla. Kylee. Kaylyn.
Aunt Trudy finished painting it because Grandma K broke her arm and wasn't up to finishing the job. THanks Aunt Trudy.

Here the boys are trying to get it set up. Nef boys are monkeys. And Spencer fits right in with the rest.

We also had our tradition Christmas Eve breakfast. But with mom's arm broken--instead of having pancakes we had doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. It was fun!!

And we started the night playing games. It was fun to have that nice big gym for kids to run their energy out while we attempted to play games. I think the favorite of our group was monopoly card game.

And here is the only video I got, because my camera was trying to run out of batteries. This is me. And Trent seemed surprised at my arm. Although my aim was completely off. I think it had to do with the blind fold. And the coaching only made it worse. :)