Christmas Guests Galore!

This Christmas season brought many visitors to our home!

1. B's PARENTS
First B's parents came in for the first weekend of break.  We mostly hung out, but we also ate downtown and walked around the Riverwalk to see all the pretty lights.  Super fun!

2. B's BROTHER
Then B's brother and sister-in-law came into town.  We took them to a different part of the Riverwalk that we had never been on.  It was so fun to take the River Taxi up to the Pearl district.  The lights were great and riding through the locks was a first-time for us.

We spent the rest of the time hanging out.  We even did our gingerbread house contest with them and AM's family.  Lots of fun!  B's brother actually did an amazing job as a rookie!

3. COUSIN AY
My cousin (AY) and his girlfriend (IA) came in on Christmas night.  They just wanted to hang out with the kids and go to a few Spurs games.  AY was nice enough to buy 2 extra tickets to the first game against Denver to take Eli and B with them.  The seats were great and they had a great time!

AY also brought 40 pounds of fresh Dungeness crabs and 2 geoduck from Seattle.  Man, I'm so glad IA, AY, and V really knew how to cook seafood.  I would be lost without them.  I just stood back and pointed to things in my kitchen, while they did all the prep work and cooking.  Yay, chefs!  We ended up baking some crabs and making a crab bisque.  All SO yummy!

AY also celebrated his 31st birthday here, so I made him a bundt cake and the kids made him cards.

AY and IA were so great with the kids. The kids didn't want them to leave!
4. J and V
J and V also arrived on Christmas Night.  We started the 26th with presents by the tree.  Kind of fun to have a Christmas Part II!  The little girls got new dance bags and the big kids got techie piggy banks!  But the big gift for the kids from J and V was a Wii U!!  The kids LOVED it!  Well, actually, from the pictures, it looks like Eli ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!  It almost looks like the gift is just for him, right?  This boy is all about video games, so he was in heaven.  The other kids loved it, too, but no one can love a Wii U as much as Eli.  Ha!

We also did another gingerbread house contest with J, V, Cousin AY, and IA.  To spice things up this year, all the adults had to draw the name of a different building you would find in a Christmas town and then create it.  I actually thought this was easier because it gave me an end-goal.

The kids still made houses and they did such a great job!  

Again, Eulee had more candy in her belly than on her house.  She won Best Candy Cane Holder!

Eli got Merriest Message because he wrote Merry Christmas on top of his roof.

Evie won Best Christmas Lights for her rooftop lights.

And Elina just blew our minds with her house...so neat and beautiful, especially her rooftop.  She won Most Creative Use of Ingredients!

I got Prancer's Dance Hall, which won Most Jingle-Rocking...I had half of my bears on a disco floor and half of them line dancing on a wooden floor!  I even had a disco ball!

B got the Grinch's Grocery Store, which won Best in Show because it looked meticulous.  The plate was so clean, the details perfect.  Ugh.  This guy...I mean, one of his bears is pushing a shopping cart!

J got the Snowed Inn and won Best Convertible Home...J even had one of her bears playing a piano in a lounge and another bear was acting as a valet.  Fancy!

V got Rudolph's Restaurant which won Best Entryway...this guy is getting too good, too...he had a bear taking a picture of 2 other bears. Pretty impressive!

IA got the garden center which won Rookie of the Year...she worked so hard smashing all the graham crackers to make dirt!

and Cousin AY got the Post Office and he really struggled with this since it was his first time.  He was sketching diagrams and everything.  It was quite comical!  He wanted to make his Post Office look like the letters "UPS" but you can't make graham crackers bend to form a U, so he settled on making it say "DHL."  His Post Office kept falling apart, but he kept on working, so he definitely deserved the Never Give Up Award!

So many visitors and so much fun!  We love the holidays!