Christmas vacation part 4: stuff

These are more pictures of our activities and the fun things we did. (These were all taken by Jamie).

Claire and Nellie playing together

The bigger cousins spent most of their time doing this...until the unfortunate accident that led to the huge rip down the center of the trampoline (oops).

The Jerusalem dinner. This is a new tradition started last year (I think?). A day or so before Christmas, we all came to my parent's home and dressed in as-authentic-as-we-could-get clothing from Jerusalem and had a dinner of traditional Middle Eastern food (pitas, olives, hummus, lamb, roasted vegetables, falafel...and mac 'n cheese, of course). Then afterwards the children acted out the nativity as Grandpa read the story.


On Christmas Eve we had a bonfire. The weather wasn't too cold, but definitely cool enough to enjoy being by the fire. We roasted marshmallows, had hot cocoa, and walked around the neighborhood to see some fun lights.


Christmas morning chaos. Each family had their own section of the living room where we opened gifts and played until Church at 11.

Afterwards we went to my aunt's house where they let all the children paint the inside of their swimming pool! Definitely the coolest activity ever! Apparently my aunt and uncle are planning on filling it in and thought that this would be a fun things for the kids. Peter was in HEAVEN. In this picture, he's the kid in the pool (in yellow) painting while everyone else is getting ready to pray. Silly boy.