Smith Family Adventures

Christmas at the Smith's!!!
This year we had all of our family together for Christmas. It's been a long time since we had the whole family up. It was really nice to be able to visit with Tiffany, Andrew, Corbin and Carter who drove up from Texas. (Yes they survived the trip both ways with the two little boys.)
Grandma Dina was just really happy that everyone could be here to celebrate the day together.
Grandpa Kevin's excited and pondering what gift he gets to unwrap!

Adults are really just kids in bigger clothes

Joshua's favorite Christmas present this year was. . . .
a sword, no wait two swords, let me count that again . . .
three swords for Christmas.

You may wonder about the Santa hat.
It's a tradition to get a picture with everyone wearing the hat.
(Why didn't I think of that earlier when I was asked what my favorite Christmas tradition was. That and also taking a picture of everything we got for Christmas)

Amelia in "the hat"

Christmas morning before everyone else got to Grandma's house.
(The frog is a cookie jar, one of the three swords, a game and a hair dryer -
these were all the things we forgot to put in our individual pictures.)

Grandpa's Stash

Even our visitors got to wear it!
Brian in "the hat".

Allison

Don

MarilynEveryone gets their chance. It's the hat that gets around.
(Good thing no one has fleas - otherwise everyone would)

Tiffany and Carter just getting to Grandma's house. Carter had just woke up.

Samuel rockin' away on Guitar Hero 5

Looks like Eliza needs to grow into the hat a little bit more.

Samuel and Jill getting ready to do some exchange presents.

A new hat for Grandma Dina to wear!

Watch out, Joshua is armed and dangerous with his broadsword.
Anything is better if it has swords in it, even the traditional Christmas hat picture.
Kayden and Andrea are looking at all the pretty ornaments on Grandma's
downstairs Christmas tree.
(That was the most important one; Santa left all the presents there.)

Now you know how we're going to cut down our next Christmas tree.
Joshua will use one of his swords to hack away at it.
(I bet he hasn't thought of that yet. Pumpkins chopping for Halloween,
and now he can do tree chopping for Christmas, he couldn't be happier
with those tasks to do)

Grandma and Grandpa

Cousin Lovin'
Samuel's kids really enjoyed having Corbin and Carter around.
They had a lot of fun playing with each other and just getting to know each other better.Eliza and Carter giving out some hugs.

Isn't it great how you can fit six kids on a couch that only holds two adults?

Don and Marilyn brought Great Grandma Pearson up to stay with us for a while as well. We had a nice visit with her and also got to see our other Texas relatives as well.

Corbin liked the train underneath Grandma's upstairs tree.

Let the Chaos and Havoc begin!
Once everyone finally got here (it wasn't soon enough for the kids),
everyone got to open presents that we gave to each other.

Ryan (excited about his new remote controlled car)
and Andrew (exhausted from opening all those presents - He was guarding the of stuff he got, or that the rest of his family got)
Grandma and Grandpa getting ready to open some of the last presents.
These were two really nice pictures that Samuel and Jill gave to them.
Eliza was the "delivery elf".

A Different king of Santa. This one is getting rid of all the wrapping paper that
had been strewn all over the downstairs carpet.
(Maybe Santa can reuse some of it next year.)

Amelia was helping Carter drive in Mario Kart. This didn't last too long.
He wanted to do it all by himself.

We all had a very nice Christmas. We enjoyed the noise, the chaos, the laughter, the chatter, the company, the food, the gifts, and just the day in general.

We hope everyone had a great time and can all come again next year!