Christmas Day 2015

Christmas Day was a lot of fun.  Our first one with four boys.  Very special.  Our day started with stockings, then breakfast, then presents, then lunch, then play, play, play, then dinner, a little more play, then bed.  Here are the pictures to add to the story...

Tavin helping with breakfast...omelette, pumpkin bread, yogurt and granola.

The four Melder boys opening their stockings.

How did this kid get so old?  Eight Christmases now.  Look at that smile.

Grampa with Jansen...don't forget, it's Jansen's first Christmas!

Fantastic stocking reactions from Penn Rye.

Attempts at a picture under the Christmas tree with all 4 boys.  Each one has it's own issues!

Jansen's first gift.  Koen was dying to give it to him.  So all the boys had to wait and let Jansen get the first present.  I'm telling you, this relationship is a special one.

Homemade Kindergarten gifts from Tavin to Aunt Abbie and Uncle Zac.  Tav was so proud!

Jansen's second gift before naptime (I think that was all his gifts...gotta make the most of the fact he has no clue and doesn't really need anything!).

Special gifts sent up from Florida from Uncle Phil, Aunt Leah and their kids.

My brother made a special gift for my Dad.  He took an old picture of my Dad with him and then mimicked the same picture with his baby boy.  It was a great surprise and such a special gesture.  Good job, Phil!  You got the tears going! 

My Dad noticed how much the family enjoyed a new puzzle at Thanksgiving, he thought he would do a little shopping for some more puzzles for this holiday.  But being the engineer that he is, he had to incorporate solving a problem I had identified...we loved working on a puzzle together, but I cannot give up my dining room table for days on end!!  Well, Grampa came up with a great solution.  He made a workspace board.  It is perfect!!  We can keep it on the table and have a craft going in there, a puzzle, a Lego project, whatever, but at dinnertime, I can just slide it under the couch or set it on the coffeetable to get it out of the way.  Ingenious! 

 Abbie had a special painting done by a friend as a surprise for Zac, it's his doggie, Pickle. =)

Koen's favorite present was an organizer case for his Rainbow Loom supplies.  He jumped right into organizing.  Yep, that's my boy. 

Penn got an Olaf from Gramma and Grampa.  Action shot of his excitement when he pulled him out of the bag!

Penn got several Play Doh toys (one from us, one from Tav and some new Play Doh itself from Janse).  Tavin and Penn got busy with them right after lunch.  Big hit! 

Tavin and Koen both got some snap and build model planes and they got to build those in the afternoon.  Tav had opened that present first and had been asking all morning to get started.  

We jumped right into puzzling in the afternoon.  We did a 300 piece in one sitting!!  Check out how great the workspace board looks!

Afternoon Christmas book reading with Grampa.

Jansen with Grampa after our delicious Christmas dinner.  That's a pretty sweet pair!

Me and my baby on his first Christmas.  This little guy still counts as my favorite Christmas gift. 

 Another Merry Christmas for the Melders!!  See you next year!

Christmas Eve 2015

This year we had a full house for Christmas Eve.  Gramma and Grampa and the Troxells were here as usual, but we had the return of Aunt Abbie and now Uncle Zac as well!!  It was so wonderful to have our family here celebrating with us (the Troxells count as family).  This year we stepped it up a bit...when my sister and I were young, we used to come up with a Christmas Eve program every year to perform for my embarrassed older brother and my supportive, good-humored parents, so I thought maybe we should bring it back, Melder-style.  Koen and Doug were particularly excited about the idea and they dove in and wrote a play about the first Christmas.  It was a great project for the two of them, digging through the Christmas Scriptures and working on the computer together (Koen's really into the Bible and technology right now, so it was a perfect combo!).  They assigned everyone parts, even down to Jansen, who was baby Jesus of course.  And they even interspersed music (Aunt Abbie not only had a part, but was also the pianist) for us all to sing along to.  Now, to some, this might all sound corny.  But to me, it was my favorite part of Christmas.  We were focused on the true meaning of the holiday, all together, singing, laughing, participating together.  It was funny, sweet and just beautiful to me.  

So, let's get on to the pictures!  If we didn't all have parts, we could've had some video, but I was too busy!  Tav and Penn were the shepherds, which we decided would also be drummer boys (it was Penn's favorite song this Christmas season, so we had to incorporate it.  We had made drums a few days ago).

Nate, Alex and Andy were the three kings and they came prepared with their homemade crowns.

Megan and I were the angels (of course!).

Zac and Abbie were Joseph and Mary and Janse did a great job playing along as Baby Jesus.

Here come the shepherds to worship the newborn King (who's sucking his thumb!).

Tavin did such a great job reading his own lines!  Penn was sort of confused about the whole thing. =)

When baby Jesus was 8 days old, Mary and Joseph took him to see Simeon and Anna.  Grampa and Gramma of course.  Here's Simeon with the babe.

I got choked up at this part, when my Dad, Jansen's grandfather was saying the powerful words of blessing that Simeon said over Jesus.

Then Anna held the child.  We all laughed because in the play (and in the Scripture), it says that "Anna, who was very old, took the child."  Poor mom!  She was a good sport (and obviously does not look the part of "very old!").

Here come the three kings to see Herod on their way to find the baby Jesus (Doug is King Herod).

Final pic of the play...I think Baby Jesus is just about done!  Is he trying to plug his ears?  He was such a good sport getting passed around (especially since Mary had to keep running to the piano for the song parts!).

Thanks to everyone for being such great participants.  It was really fun to all go through the Christmas story together.  I think this might become a tradition, so prepare yourselves!

After the program, we had a lovely ham dinner and the boys played together for awhile, then it was present exchange time. As usual, our boys got some beautiful gifts from the Troxells (we've already read the picture books about 10 times each!).

It was Jansen's first Christmas Eve obviously, so he was quite doted on and paid attention to by all the boys.

Random awesome picture of Koen and Gramma.  How precious!  This is a framer!

And another framer of these handsome guys! 

And another!  Koen really looks up to Uncle Zac, he's going to want this one in his room.

One of many read-throughs, this time with Aunt Abbie.  (Oh my goodness, Penn's eyes are crossed...I hope we aren't back to that!)

The Troxells left around 7pm and we started the bedtime routine at home.  Once the kids were all down, it was time for last minute wrapping.  I really thought I had gotten a good head start this year, but it still took me about 3 hours to finish.  Thankfully Ab had lots to do as well, so we had fun with "Elf" on in the background, the family gathered round and quite a mess on the floor!

The finished product as I turned out the lights before bed.  So much anticipation for Christmas!