This past Saturday was Kalebaugh Family Christmas!
It was the only weekend that all Dad's siblings were available
to get together before Christmas, so even though it was only two days
after Thanksgiving, we celebrated Christmas! And that was perfectly fine
with me! My view of the whole "Christmas" thing is that as soon as
Thanksgiving Dinner is cleaned up after Christmastime officially commences!
All the Kalebaugh family members have their specific dishes that they
always bring to family gatherings. But, since there are a lot of family members
I won't list who brings what because that would take quite a while, and it
would probably make you all hungry! Lets just say, uh, we ate well...
Every once and a while we will do it somewhere else, but generally
KFC is always at our house. Granted, we don't have the largest house,
but everyone always seems to fit and we all get to enjoy being
squished in the same house for one day a year :)
And the corner by the living room closet is always the "tossing place"
for everyone's coats and purses/baby bags. Here's our nice little
pile that got started. Believe me it was much bigger by the time
everyone arrived!
It's always fun because the majority of all the family members come
so we get to see a lot of them that we only see a few times a year.
This year quite a few couldn't come, but we still had a houseful!
We missed the ones who weren't there, but had a wonderful time still!
Here's Jeremy and his son Cainen.
Poor Cainen was so tired, but he fought off sleep all day because there
were so many new things/people to see. He is one of the happiest little
guys I've ever met though, even without a nap he was just smiling and
laughing pretty much all day!
Unfortunately, as you probably all know, Little Miss Taffie really has been quite
grumpy with new people lately, and she doesn't like children much at all, so she
was banished to Mom and Dad's room with her favorite leather chair...
Why she is on the floor instead of in her chair I didn't figure out.
"The boys" messing around. I think they might have been beating
up Jeremy... That's what it looks like but I can't quite tell :P
That or they might be doing some sort of tribal dance... That's a close second!
Emma and her Grandpa!
The kitchen! There's like a system or something to get through there.
The system would be "be small and move fast" :D
The system for the living room is pretty much the same, but it works out.
Once everyone gets their food, they mostly just find a spot and stake it out
there for the rest of the day. That's always how it seems to go, and it always
works! And KFC is one of my "most looked forwards to" events of "winter".
And yes, Christmastime and winter both start after Thanksgiving Dinner
in my book!
Me and Cainen!
I've only seen Cainen a few times in his almost 1 yr. long life, so I
tried to find lots of time to hang out with him. He, his favorite toy "Grover"
from Sesame Street, and I got to play for quite a while. I didn't like it at all... :P
Crystal and Damon.
He just lost one of his front teeth and got to hear about it all day long!
He's probably going to want to wear dentures to our next family gathering...
Oh, to be 6 again... (or maybe he's 7??) :D
So, one of the gifts that we got from our Aunt Louise was a
little dinosaur excavating kit thing. It was clay/plaster in a block and you
had a hammer and chisel and brush and got to be an archaeologist!
Crystal enlisted all the little cousins to help her, so they swiped a table cloth
and occupied themselves in the living room.
Another gift from Aunt Louise (she seems to always find 'unique' gifts somehow)
was mismatched kneehigh socks! :D And we were instructed that they didn't just want
us to put them on and then pull our pant legs over them, they wanted to actually see
the socks, so we had to roll up our pants and wear our socks around...
Josh decided he was really really glad he was born a boy :P
The guys all got chocolate covered cherries instead of socks.
Jeremy found that the other cousins were excavating the dinosaur
so he went to be reinforcements and help them out a little...
"Gather 'round kids and Jeremy will show us how its done!"
KFC's always involve lots of coffee :)
Miss Emma! :) She is growing so fast! It was fun to get to watch
KFC is always at our house. Granted, we don't have the largest house,
but everyone always seems to fit and we all get to enjoy being
squished in the same house for one day a year :)
And the corner by the living room closet is always the "tossing place"
for everyone's coats and purses/baby bags. Here's our nice little
pile that got started. Believe me it was much bigger by the time
everyone arrived!
It's always fun because the majority of all the family members come
so we get to see a lot of them that we only see a few times a year.
This year quite a few couldn't come, but we still had a houseful!
We missed the ones who weren't there, but had a wonderful time still!
Here's Jeremy and his son Cainen.
Poor Cainen was so tired, but he fought off sleep all day because there
were so many new things/people to see. He is one of the happiest little
guys I've ever met though, even without a nap he was just smiling and
laughing pretty much all day!
Unfortunately, as you probably all know, Little Miss Taffie really has been quite
grumpy with new people lately, and she doesn't like children much at all, so she
was banished to Mom and Dad's room with her favorite leather chair...
Why she is on the floor instead of in her chair I didn't figure out.
"The boys" messing around. I think they might have been beating
up Jeremy... That's what it looks like but I can't quite tell :P
That or they might be doing some sort of tribal dance... That's a close second!
Emma and her Grandpa!
The kitchen! There's like a system or something to get through there.
The system would be "be small and move fast" :D
The system for the living room is pretty much the same, but it works out.
Once everyone gets their food, they mostly just find a spot and stake it out
there for the rest of the day. That's always how it seems to go, and it always
works! And KFC is one of my "most looked forwards to" events of "winter".
And yes, Christmastime and winter both start after Thanksgiving Dinner
in my book!
Me and Cainen!
I've only seen Cainen a few times in his almost 1 yr. long life, so I
tried to find lots of time to hang out with him. He, his favorite toy "Grover"
from Sesame Street, and I got to play for quite a while. I didn't like it at all... :P
Crystal and Damon.
He just lost one of his front teeth and got to hear about it all day long!
He's probably going to want to wear dentures to our next family gathering...
Oh, to be 6 again... (or maybe he's 7??) :D
So, one of the gifts that we got from our Aunt Louise was a
little dinosaur excavating kit thing. It was clay/plaster in a block and you
had a hammer and chisel and brush and got to be an archaeologist!
Crystal enlisted all the little cousins to help her, so they swiped a table cloth
and occupied themselves in the living room.
Another gift from Aunt Louise (she seems to always find 'unique' gifts somehow)
was mismatched kneehigh socks! :D And we were instructed that they didn't just want
us to put them on and then pull our pant legs over them, they wanted to actually see
the socks, so we had to roll up our pants and wear our socks around...
Josh decided he was really really glad he was born a boy :P
The guys all got chocolate covered cherries instead of socks.
Jeremy found that the other cousins were excavating the dinosaur
so he went to be reinforcements and help them out a little...
"Gather 'round kids and Jeremy will show us how its done!"
KFC's always involve lots of coffee :)
Miss Emma! :) She is growing so fast! It was fun to get to watchher do her stuff and get so excited to see the people she knows!
Mighty B. SuperBeeko!!! And the ChocolateChipCookie Fairy...
Aunt Louise!
This year we handed over the "musical entertainment duties" to the
Mighty B. SuperBeeko!!! And the ChocolateChipCookie Fairy...
Aunt Louise!She looks soooo much like Grandma... <3
This year we handed over the "musical entertainment duties" to theyounger musicians in our midst...
Me and Aunt Pam.
Crystal and Josh.
The dinosaur emerges!!
Us.
Us and Jeremy.
Ha! More typical!
What do you think of this??!
Jeremy trying to get Cainen to smile...
Cainen trying to eat his Grandpa's Marine hat.
Well, that's all the pictures from our day.
Me and Aunt Pam.
Crystal and Josh.
The dinosaur emerges!!
Us.
Us and Jeremy.
Ha! More typical!
What do you think of this??!
Jeremy trying to get Cainen to smile...
Cainen trying to eat his Grandpa's Marine hat.
Well, that's all the pictures from our day.Kalebaugh Family Christmas down, and Simpson, Ugly Sweater, Willow
and all other regular Christmas services/parties to go!
Drinking straws have many uses, we found out that they worked great to hold
