Christmas on New Year's

This year, we celebrated Christmas with Eric's side of the family after the holiday; on New Year's Day!   We got twice the bang for the buck.  :-)   

(Yes, the posting date on this blog is back-dated, to ensure it winds up in the 2015 printed blog book!)

Ramsey's playing his Kindle while waiting for Troy, Sarah, Sadie, and Isaac to come.

After they arrived, the beautiful Miss Sadie scooped Ramsey up and I took a some shots.  Sadie never complains.  :-) 

When the big boys joined the party, it was time to be goofy! 

Time sure does fly by.  Here, Connor is 13, Sadie is 12, Isaac is 10, and Ramsey is 23 months.

After things calmed down a bit, it was time to open presents!

Connor and Nana gave me a nice big grin.  We were happy to be with everyone again!

Connor received some really wonderful gifts; a Kindle Fire Stick and remote, a Star Wars shirt, an Under Armour sweatshirt, a gift card, an autographed football, and more.

Ramsey got a lot of great gifts also; a basketball hoop set, some super cool clothes, a Paw Patrol play set, a ton of matchbox cars, a number of Thomas & Friends railway cars, etc.  He didn't want to sit still a lot to open presents (he wanted to explore everything and see what everyone else was doing), so he had some help.  :-)

...although he happily inspected and played with all of his wonderful toys and presents after-the-fact!

We had a little fun Isaac.  Eric had purchased a gag box for him as well.  Isaac was the proud recipient of "Extreme Chores", a Wii-like game which featured oh-so-fun chores like doing dishes, digging, raking, and scooping the litter box!  While we all chuckled at his reaction, he was perplexed and not overly excited about it.  We pestered him to open the box to show us the contents.  He pulled out a Star Wars hoodie and shirt instead.   Relief!!!!

Uncle Cory happily tore into his presents.

I snagged a nice pic of Auntie Sarah and Uncle Troy after the presents had been opened.

Isaac figured out he was small enough to hide in the TV cabinet.

But Ramsey found him!  He found it amusing to continue shutting the door on Isaac.

Present-opening is pretty exhausting stuff, so Nana made sundaes and malts afterwards.

Ramsey got some good Bumpa time.

And of course, Riggsy could not be forgotten at present time!  Nana and Bumpa bought him a HUGE rawhide dog treat.

Here's Bumpa... with his bone. 

I tried to get a decent picture of Riggs after he was given his present, but he wasn't about to sit still; he was jumping and shaking his head while I took the shot.  My efforts were futile!

After supper, Nana had a project; candy trains.

She diligently showed Sadie how to make them.

Ramsey and I sat there with the ladies.  We weren't very useful; we just pigged out on candy.

 Sadie ended up making about a half dozen.  

 Here are Nana and Sadie after the completion of their fun craft project.

Connor and Isaac came up from playing and started calling dibs on the trains they wanted.  :-)

 Ramsey wasn't fooled by the candy.  He knew they were choo choo trains!  His Thomas the Train cars have magnets on each end to connect them together.   Ramsey was trying to connect the candy trains to the metallic ends of the Life Saver wrappers and push them around.

The next day was the annual Christmas party for the kids (organized by the company that Nana works part time for).   As usual, the event was held at the movie theater, so our "second breakfast" was popcorn and pop!  

We went to see Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens (yup, Ramsey too!).   Eric and Connor had been waiting a YEAR to see it!  Star Wars is one of Connor's favorites and is Eric's all-time favorite childhood movie series (nay, EPIC SAGAS).  For me, Star Wars is pure nostalgia with some great light saber battles.  FYI: The new movie did not disappoint!

Afterwards, the kids received wonderful gifts and had their picture taken with Santa's elves.  

Then, sadly, it was time to go home.  So, off we went, in an overloaded truck, feeling like gypsies.  :-)

Speaking of home, Riggs tore into his ginormous bone after we'd all settled in.  

We've been having fun wagering on his progress.
This one might take him more than an hour to finish!

Merry Christmas 2015!

Here's something to leave you all with at the end of the year:

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years." 

~ Abraham Lincoln