Christmas celebrations

Claire is in the orange on the far left. Her team is undefeated!

My brother David and his kids

Aunt Myrtle and Erin

My niece Julia and Erin

My brother Dan, my niece Ellie (his daughter), and my niece Andreya (Dave's daughter)

Ben and Emma playing "bedtime"

Ben, Erin, Emma, Lucus, and Benjamin....Ben had just finished playing bed time with Emma so he still wasn't clothed.

Brenda, me, Stephene, Maria

This past weekend was crazy busy, and the beginning of a string of Christmas parties. It still amazes me how the timing of everything worked out so perfectly. Our Saturday went something like this: I drop Claire off at choir practice while Erin and Jerry go to Erin's basketball game. I go to Panera to pick up bagels, drop off a quiche and the bagels at my sister's, pick up Claire from choir practice, and then go back to my sister Joan's house where Jerry meets us for the Van Laar Christmas party. We left there around 2pm, brought Claire to her double header basketball game where she scored two baskets! If you follow facebook you'll remember my update from last week was that she made it through the whole game without touching the ball so this has been quite an improvement. After Claire's game we came home, the babysitter came a short time later, and then Jerry and I headed out to Rockford for his company's Christmas party. A fun, but busy day.

Today I had my friends Brenda, Stephene, and Maria over for coffee. It was fun to catch up while our kids played. Brenda and I caught Emma and Ben playing "bedtime". They were stripped down to their underwear and the routine was to read a few books, and then jump into bed together and pretend sleep. Then they'd wake up, jump on the bed a few times and start the routine over again. Last time these two were together they scattered their dinner across my dining room carpet, ketchup and all, so I suppose this was an improvement. Innocent enough....I think! I guess all the playing this morning wore Ben out because when I went to go check on him after not seeing him for a while this afternoon he was asleep in his bed!