Christmas in Virginia

We had  a fun couple of weeks with my family in VA this Christmas.  All my siblings made it out this year so it was a fun, full house.  Here is a sampling of some of the fun things we did:

We ate and we ate and we ate.  And yes, it was all delicious!

We took a big family picture, outside in the freshly fallen snow.  Here's Tate in his picture get-up.

Did I say "freshly fallen snow"?  Ya, there was a huge, freak snowstorm.  Here is a sampling of  what my parent's backyard looks like with 13 inches of snow in it.  Chesapeake does not get snow, at least not much more than a dusting.  Supposedly it was the most snow Chesapeake has gotten since the 1800s.  We even experienced a power outage for a couple of hours and got to light every candle in the house. 

Before the snow storm, the kids enjoyed digging old toys out of the shed and playing outside.

The cousins had a great time playing together.  Grant and Mason were pretty much inseperable and Tate followed Maddy around like she was his long lost older sister.  Here they are in their cute Christmas pjs.

I tried to keep all the extra cake and cookies in check with a little exercise.  The boys were nice enough to keep me company.

Grant especially enjoyed our Christmas Eve tradition of reading the Christmas story, going for a "star walk" (we go for a quick walk at night to "look" for the new star), and come home for hot chocolate and donuts.

And of course, there was present opening.  This particular present caused Grant to yell, "OH MY GOSH!!!  IT'S A BATMAN HOUSE!!  LOOK!!!  BATMAN'S HOUSE!!"  That's the kind of reaction we were looking for.  Very gratifying!