We had lots of fun hanging out with my family. Having 9 grandkids in the house was often a noisy and pretty crazy time, but there were moments like in the picture above where it was really calm and sweet. Kendalyn loves her Papa. And, I don't mean she loves him. I mean she LOVES him!! With her sweet little voice, she'll call out "Papa" and Dad's heart melts and he is right there for her. She's got him wrapped around his finger.
Now, I ask you, what is wrong with this picture? Should two grown men be reading the Black Friday ads BEFORE the girls? No. But, did they? Yes. We almost had to fight our way into getting to read them. Times are a' changin!
The cousins had an amazing time together. So much laughter and joy with them. It was so fun to watch! Livie and Caleb were watching cartoons together, so I had to take a picture. :-)
Of course, Noah revelled in being able to play with boys. They had a ball!
We all took turns working on Thanksgiving Day in the church kitchen. We used that space instead of the one at the house, so had more room. Here, Jeff is making his sweet potato casserole.
Dad brought Mom over about an hour before we ate. She enjoyed getting to see the grandkids and talk with us before we ate. She was very happy to have Micah here this week.
We took the opportunity when we were all in town to take our Christmas pictures. Had to get the kids dressed up and take one of just them. Boy, do I have beautiful kids or what?! :-)
And, look at those nephews and niece of mine! This was my first chance to meet Emma and she is just the cutest little thing! I am a very blessed Auntie!
In anticipation of having all the kids together, I bought turkey placemats. The turkeys were made out of chalkboard, so they could draw on them. This was Isaiah's creation.
This isn't the Christmas shot I choose for our Christmas cards this year, but it looks about the same. Just wanted you to see that Pete's on the floor and I'm on the stage and still a good 12" shorter. ;-)
Emma (L) and Avery (R) are just 2 weeks apart and were so stinkin' cute together. Avery kept grabbing Emma's hand and eating it. It was hilarious! I got my baby fix this week, let me tell ya!
Because we don't know what will come with Mom's health in 2012, we wanted to take the opportunity to take a big Drexler family picture with all of us, while she's still with us. I think it turned out GREAT! Last one we took was when Livie was just 4 months old. We've added 1 spouse and 5 grandkids since then!
I love how the men gather around the turkey when it comes time to carve. I must say the boys stayed very active in helping this year with the food - and not just with the turkey. It was definitely a collaborative effort.
Jeff's mom, grandma, Aunt, Uncle, and cousin joined us for the meal. They all brought goodies themselves. I took a picture of Jeff with his mom, grandma, and my mom - along with his family.
As you can see, the kids were hard at work on drawing their turkeys.
They were all very excited to show me the finished product. Here is Caleb's design. :-)
Kendalyn loves to draw, so this was a lot of fun for her!
They all did a great job on their placemats.
We had a great spread that day!! We took over some of the leftovers to the firemen next door. They really appreciated the gesture and the kids loved being able to share their goodies.
When we're at the Trolingers, I usually help with peeling potatoes and I know that Sue always had a 10 lb bag. Well, with 22 people there, I figured we'd need 15 lbs. As you can see, Livie was excited about all thos potatoes!! We had so much leftover though that I decided that only Trolinger men need to eat 10 lbs of potatoes. The Drexlers aren't quite up to their level yet. ;-)
Right before we sat down to eat, my Aunt Phyl and Uncle David skyped in from Haiti. Mom was so excited to see her sister! When Phyl was out, Mom was in a really bad place emotionally, having had just moved into the nursing home. It did Phyl well to see how much Mom had improved with that. Mom is so at peace there now and looks forward to being there. It was so good for her to see that. :-)
Why Pete wanted to only have 3 kids, I'll never know, because he LOVES babies and they love him! He's a natural! And, boy, he's so cute when he's taking care of them too. Here Avery is enjoying her Uncle Pete. :-)
After C-R-A-Z-Y Black Friday shopping (which involved cursing, fistfights, display destruction, and waiting in line for insane amounts of time), the boys went golfing. Cara and I had the kids sit down and paint pictures for Grandma, so we could hang them in her room. They really enjoyed doing that and took their time to make them really special for her.
Here, Papa is enjoying some quiet time with some of his grandkids. I guarantee you that dad is still sleeping off our visit! It was very loud and very busy those 4 days. :-) He didn't get a lot of quite moments like this. ;-)
We were supposed to go decorate mom's room on Friday, so I could join Pete and the kids and go down to Warsaw to see the Trolingers for a while, but after shopping until 3:30am and going out again at 7:30, I was exhausted as were Micah and Jeff, so we opted for me to stay behind while they went down themselves and we went and decorated mom's room - just Micah, Em, and I. Well, Avery too, but she just sat there and was cute. We felt it was important to make that a special time just with us and she really enjoyed it. You can see the little Christmas tree and some of her snowmen and all the drawings the kids made.
Cara and the kids came shortly after with dad to say their goodbyes. Dad wanted to help mom if she got too sad, but she handled it well. She was pretty tired when we left, so she went straight to bed and to sleep when we went home. She tires easily now, but is happy when we can be with her.
One request Dad made was that we decorate the house for Christmas too. So, Dad, Jeff, Isaiah, and Mason went out and got a real tree. Then we all helped decorate it. Micah and his family left right after that and about an hour later, Pete and the kids came back and we loaded up and left too. It was a really special time together. I think we know mom's time is shorter than it is longer, so we tried to make sure that this was a time we will always remember and I will say that I think we accomplished that. I hope next year at this time, Mom will still be ok, but we trust God's plan and are trying to make our time together count. This year, we were thankful for family and for the precious gift of time. :-)
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