Christmas in Chehalis

This year it was my parents turn to have all the kids home for Christmas and with 3 new grand babies born within the last 18 months it sure was a full house!  We had a ton of fun and we were constantly busy with games, babies, family, friends, trips to the mountain for skiing and snowboarding and a trip to the beach for clamming!

Here are some pics of everything that went on over Christmas break in Chehalis.

The loot! With 12 people in the house we had to use 2 rooms for everything!

The little ones are sleeping and Nic & Becki hadn't made it down yet.

Shelby blends right in; haha!

Shelby decided to use Hunter as her step ladder to get into the presents.

"Hmmm...where to next?"

Go Shelby Go! This is the only present she decided to rip open by herself. Silly girl!

Each year after Thanksgiving my parents decorate the old fire engine at the Fire Department and call it "The Santa Mobile." It's used for parades and to drive around the streets some evenings handing out candy canes to kids and fire safety info to parents. We were able to snap a few pics on it this year before all the decorations came down. So fun!

We got to make a trip to the beach for clam digging a few days after Christmas. Unfortunately we only went home with 6 clams in all. It just wasn't a good dig. It was Shelby's first time to get to go out and play on the beach and boy did she have fun. We'll have to go again this summer so she can actually have fun in the sun and not have to be so bundled up, haha! While us older kids were out on the beach trying to find some clams Mima and the babies (Hunter and Shelby) were hanging out in the van listening to "Mama Mia" and dancing on the front seats...well, Shelby was doing most of the dancing. Thanks Mima for entertaining the wee ones!

Someone had a bit of fun on the beach! She did NOT want to go back into the van.

All bundled up trying to find some clams!

Another fun thing that happened in Chehalis after Christmas...IT SNOWED!! This was Shelby's first snow and she took right to it. I wasn't expecting it to snow so I didn't bring any snow clothes with us but we made do and just bundled her up with layers and layers. She had SO much fun and would have kept playing if we had more waterproof clothes for her. Everyone had a ton of fun and as you will see by the pictures below, the older kids had fun making ginormous snowmen and snow animals.

She was having SO much fun!

Making tracks!

Jane & Shelby having fun on the trampoline!

TJ & Krista started the ball rolling.

Many hands make lots of fun work!

Tj made all the little snowmen on the swing set.

The massive snowman started to lean.

I tried keeping it up...but it just got too cold!

Unfortunately it lost it's battle with gravity and the warmer weather.

Kaeli turned 10 on January 3rd so we decided to have a birthday party for her while everyone was home. It was a lotta fun. Kaeli wanted me to make her a cake and this is the design she chose from about 5 designs I emailed her. I think it turned out pretty dang cute! It was fun to make but man did it take a lotta time! 

Happy Birthday Kaeli-bug!

Of course we had to get a cousin picture while we were all there. As you can see it didn't go quite as planned, but this picture will bring back memories for years. 

We played many games of Farkle, made bead pets with Kaeli, the little girls sat in the laundry baskets and "helped" Mima fold it and they also spent some time in the big bay window watching the boys throw snowballs at it.

Haha...ya missed me!

Christmas was so much fun this year and I can hardly wait for another two years to go by so that we can all be in Chehalis again. I love having all my family together at once. It may be a little crazy at times but I wouldn't change it for the world.