Great Grandma Good's Christmas

On Saturday, December 23, our electricity kept blinking on and off until it went out for good for a few hours. I assume it was because of the WINDY conditions. Great Grandma Good's Christmas party was that evening, and I had volunteered to bring a veggie tray and chocolate dessert. But, alas, there was no baking that day with no electric. So, Shawn stopped at the grocery store to pick up a dessert (and there were no traffic lights working either!).

I wore a borrowed shirt from Mamaw, which I didn't realize was sleeveless so I put a sweater over top. Shawn wore a coordinating sweater I had bought him a couple years back. Other than how pale we were, I think we looked nice!

It's always nice to see the extended family. I had actually went with Jessica (pictured above) and her kiddos to the WJTL Open House on Tuesday of that week to check out the new station and catch up. My younger two kids are only a few months younger than her children, and the cousins get alone well.

After playing for a little while, we ate dinner once everyone arrived. Everyone brought something, and Grandma Good had her famous ham balls. The meal was delicious! Ryan had a cracker in one hand and a cookie in the other, and he was happy!

After dinner, we played the annual "now you have it, now you don't" game. All adults were given three numbers, and when your number was called, you could pick a gift from the table or from someone else. After your third number was called, you kept what you had...UNLESS you had multiple gifts, then someone could still take from you. When you were down to one gift and your last number had been called, you put the gift back as your gift. When Kelcey's number was called, she picked a pretty red felt bag with a snowman on it. Usually she has the 'inside scoop' on the gifts, to that became a highly sought-after gift as numbers were called. Stacy ended up with it, and inside was a can of mixed nuts. :) :) :) Joshua picked our gift right away and was very excited to open it, but at the last minute Grant took it for Aunt Gayle. She got the paper towels and cake mix he wanted. Ha! We ended up with hot sauce, which we gave to Jessica for her toilet paper. Daddy's gift that Caleb picked was some hand soap with a loofah. It's always fun to play the game and see what people get. Kelcey got a box with three bags of goldfish that the kids were all excited about, but when she offered to share, they were too shy to go over to her. FUN!

After the adults play their game, Grandma Good set up the gifts for the young children on the tables in piles by name. This year we had went shopping with her, so we knew what the boys were getting. It was still fun to watch them open them. Here's Caleb's "Uno Moo!" game - we've had fun playing it several times already.

His favorite gift was "CAPTAIN AMERICA!" He has carried it around everywhere, saving the day and having him talk. He loves it!

Here are thank you hugs to Great Grandma Good!

Ryan loved his phone, and everyone was laughing at him saying "Hello!" which sounds a little more like "HOLLA!"

Joshua was excited for his Transformer.

Ben came over and said "I got one, too, but ours are different."

So I tried to get a picture of them with theirs. Joshua moved his at the last second. ;-)

Here's Ryan opening his tub time toys - they make noise in the bath tub! He and his brothers will have fun with those!

Joshua was THRILLED to open these Mario characters!!! Can you tell by his cheese that he couldn't wait to open them? I'm not sure who helped him get them out of the box, but they were the hit of the night.In fact, as you can see from the picture that cousin Jess took below, all the kids grabbed them and were playing with them at the end of the night.

She also took this picture of some of the boy cousins with their boy toys from Great Grandma Good.

Ryan was a little slower in opening his gifts than the bigger kids who tear into theirs. But, he still enjoyed each one. This one lights up and makes lots of sounds - right up his alley! And here you can see Mom's shirt that I borrowed (and love!) better. Too bad I gave it back the next day. :) :) :)

After she had handed each family their gifts (and she is always SO generous - THANK YOU, Grandma Good!), we gave her her gift. This year all the grandchildren (minus the Yeager family who does their own special Christmas with her on the actual day) - went together and bought her a new 32" TV for her bedroom since it was suggested to us that this would be a good gift. Shawn & Don did some research and agreed that this Samsung LED was the best deal, so we purchased it on Thanksgiving night from Sears and wrapped it to give to her. Don graciously offered (or should I say that Jess offered for Don) to set it up for her.

On Black Friday, we also found a deal on a DVD player, something else Bonnie had said she could use. We weren't sure for what or where, so when we found one relatively cheap, we decided to buy it as well and hope that she could use it. Normally we don't buy an off-brand as a gift for someone, but we hoped it would work and she could use it. We gave it to her from all the great grandchildren - our three boys, Jordon, Grant & Jenavieve and Benjamin & Jordyn.

Ryan was EXHAUSTED - he hadn't napped much that afternoon (not that we didn't try, but he had just talked and talked in his crib), and by that evening with all the chaos of a big family party, he was spent. We decided to call it a night a little earlier than we may have normally, but I think other folks were also starting to think about heading home. We wished everyone a Merry Christmas and headed out, listening to the boys' excitement about their presents and playing with their cousins, etc. When we got home, one of the boys took this picture of us. It's not a very flattering angle, but we don't get a lot of pictures together, so we'll take it! :) We put the kiddos to bed and headed there ourselves...