Around the House, Riverdance, and New Year’s Eve

It was cute to see the high chairs lined up – I think there were three set up in the kitchen.

Here’s baby Henry, who is pretty close to Charlie’s age:

They took a bath together and it was hilarious!! Both boys were splashing, climbing…

The kids did a version of the primary program, which was really cute (and impressive for zero practices ahead of time):

Eli had fun hanging out with the older boy cousins, being tough with them:

Here’s Kaelan’s sweet face:

Adele’s playful face:

Babies Caleb and Charlie hanging out together – Caleb is younger but taller:

Serious Samuel:

Oh Charlie, there were a few moments when I wanted to cover my ears too :) It got pretty crazy at times!

Sofia:

Calder and Luke – such cute cousin friends:

Ben’s parents gave the adult kids tickets to see Riverdance at the theater in San Jose. This included us leaving all 21 children with his parents (along with a few other babysitters). Once again, they all survived, though I’m positive there were a lot of tears and some craziness. Ben’s mom, who raised eight children, seemed worn out after that night. That’s saying a lot! I think she was brave for taking that on – and so generous. Here are the couples before Riverdance started -

Elizabeth and Caleb:

Me and Ben:

Becca and Paul:

Jon and Danielle:

Emily (missing Aaron, who had to go back to Oregon early for work):

Rob and Heather:

Matt and JoAnn:

Cami and Joe:

And finally, Eli posing with the snowman and Santa pillows that Ben said he has pictures with when he was a little boy:

And on New Year’s Eve, we celebrated in phases. This was for the under 5 set, celebrating at 8:30 p.m.:

There was a big bag of balloons that we dumped out and the kids had fun kicking around.

Later at midnight, Charlie was up after being asleep for a few hours, so he got to ring in his first new year at the right time. Charlie's sleeping on the trip was not the best - the four of us were all sleeping in one room, and often if one child woke up crying, this woke up the other, and then we'd have two tired, unhappy children at some odd hour of the night. I'm still working to get their sleeping back on track, a few days after being home.

Other fun activities from the week - a cousins party with Ben's extended family in the Bay Area - there were something like 39 kids and 37 adults that all got together, played volleyball, ate pizza and caught up a little with each other. We also got together with the extended Severson fam on New Year's day to play some football, watch some football, and eat good food.

On another day, the adults all went to see Avatar in 3D (yes, I left my kids a third time with babysitters - this was a record for me). I had VERY low expectations, thought the previews looked stupid with the tall blue guys and I'm usually not a fan of science fiction. But it was so good and actually kept my attention the entire time, and didn't feel like it dragged at all (it's about three hours long).

Happy New Year!