New Year's fireworks - kids enjoyed this year
This was quite a year for celebrating Christmas! By the end of it all, the kids were still waiting for more. In trying to coordinate everyone's schedules, we ended up with one full week of Christmas.
We kicked it off with Ava's school Christmas program that included singing for an audience filled with parents and grandparents, including mommy, daddy, Vovo, Grammy, Alex, and Sofia. Ava loved it all, even though she was not as prepared, having missed school due to a cold and her dentist visit. She was so cute and really had fun playing with her friends at the reception. She is so funny to observe while she is hanging out with her guy friends...reminds me kind of myself at that age! Ha!
The weekend before Christmas, mommy's side started to arrive. Christina, Ayim, Martha, Ben, Bobby, Heather, Bridgette, and Aiden all came in town to celebrate. We had a fantastic time just enjoying each other's company and a delicious feijoada by Vovo.
Our secret friend reveal was hilarious and sweet as always, and Ben did a great job joining in the fun - even though this was the first time we were meeting him in person. Ava totally took to Ben, and Ben seemed to enjoy himself when invited to participate in multiple games of hide-and-seek with Ava and reading books to Alex. Even Sofia found Ben to be quite amusing. It was so great to have everyone together.
The kids had the best time and were more than happy to get to open presents already!
After the weekend, everyone left except for Marthi. We got to keep her until the 26th. So we continued on celebrating, going to church on Christmas Eve, having dinner together, then Santa came to our house on Christmas morning.
The kids were super excited and came downstairs to find the gifts they had asked for:
an air hockey table (they had played just a few weeks ago), a brown present and a blue present (that's what Alex had asked for), new pj's for all, and new soccer balls too!
Even after all that, we were still not done!! We went over to Grammy & Grandpa's house to see them, have lunch, and Vovo, Voovoo, and Marthi came over too on Christmas day. It was nice just to visit, and to kick off the celebration over there as well! A few days later, uncle Trey and aunt Missy and family came down to visit as well. Ava and Alex had a great time playing with Payton, and Sofia enjoyed it all too. What could be better than family time with cousins and extra presents on top too!
What a whirlwind of a week, but so blessed to have had such a wonderful time with all of our family. I only wish we could do it more often! It was so special, that the fireworks on New Year's seemed to be the only way to top it all off - this year the kids seemed to enjoy hearing/seeing the fireworks more than being terrified of the noise. Thank God for all these miracles!!!
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