Christmas this year was quite the anticipated reunion for my side of the family. It was the first time all of us siblings were together with our families and even my Grandma was there! It was so great seeing her again.
Sydnee's being the stinker that she is and not cooperating. Just say "CHEESE!"
This was Great Grandma's first time meeting Bentley too. Great-Grandma and Bentley are watching the football game together.
The proud Grandma's with their grandbabies.
Our kids' only cousin on the Drake side of the family was there too so we got to meet Tenley for the first time who is just six weeks older than Bentley. One morning my brother, Justin and Cam let the Mommies sleep in so they let Bentley and Tenley have some cousin bonding time...well it was more like Tenley would grab his shirt almost to say "girls rule and boys drool" in a loving cousin kind of way. We've agreed that these will be filed in the "blackmail for wedding rehearsal dinner" tab. They were so cute playing together.
Look! They're holding hands how cute is that?
They were both on the exact same schedule too. When one would need to eat, the other baby would need to eat, when one had a poopy blowout, the other had a poopy blowout, and well, you get the idea! It was so fun sharing baby stories with my sister-in-law Brittany, oh how I missed her:) Hallie was especially excited to see Tenley and was so sweet with her, always wanting to hold her and play with her. Here are all the cousins...
We were always eager to get the kiddos to bed so we could enjoy some grown up time playing games like Bananagrams (I thought the banana in the pic was rather funny), Blurt and Oh Hell (a classic Drake game), and doing crafts of course too.
And after years of telling Cam we had to eat at Pizzapapalis sometime when we got to MI, we finally went!
Here's our side of the table. I didn't seem to get a pic of the people on the other side of the table... hmm.
And it was all that I had talked it up to be too. Most people can only eat one or two pieces and they're spent, but Justin of course downed about 6 or 7 pieces of this thick Chicago style pizza...
The babies enjoyed the food too... just a day later... in the liquid form :)
A few days before Christmas we had an unexpected visitor come to G&G's house! The girls thought it was pretty cool to have Santa's undivided attention, although Syd liked him better from far away until he asked her what she wanted, that finally opened her up to talking with him.
Before we knew it it was Christmas Eve. See Syd's sneaky look on her face? That look explains everything about Syd's personality in one word: a tease.
And she has her "letters" as she calls them in her hand that she carries around E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. To the table to eat cereal, to the bathroom while she tinkles, in the car running errands, even getting a drink of water, they are always with her. And they're not even letters, they're numbers! She always has them in her hand and when one goes missing, everyone has to stop what they're doing to find it and she always knows what number is missing and what color it is. It's so funny and kind of cute that she calls them, her "letters." She started carrying them around when Hallie started school so I think it's her way of feeling like she has something important she's learning about too. It's sweet.
On Christmas Eve, we celebrated Grandpa's 29th birthday (haven't you been 29 for like 23 years now?) with Great Grandma's chocolate cake, and we ate some good grub including Grandma's banana punch and Aunt Mary's sweet and sour meatballs. The baby's were even celebrating the holiday in their own cute way.
Before bed, the kids opened their Christmas Eve pj's and new bedtime story books.
The girls' pj's came with matching pj's for their dolls!
Then it was Christmas morning! Grandma has a very strict rule on Christmas morning: NO ONE GOES DOWNSTAIRS UNTIL: everyone is awake and teeth and hair are brushed, lights are on, Christmas music is quietly playing in the background, and the camera and video camera is on and recording. You know it's true Mom! So much to the kids' dismay here they all are waiting on the stairs until the above list is complete. Get used to it kids, I had to do this for 20 years! Grandma really does mean well :)
Santa brought Hallie a "modest" Barbie doll (that's actually what she asked for from Santa, you can imagine Santa's look on his face when a 5 year old said it has to be "modest."),
Sydnee a Rapunzel doll,
and Bentley a cool car construction site (which Daddy had a lot of fun playing with, he enjoys having some boy toys around the house).
The most exciting gift of the day was the Wii that we bought the kids for our family gift. Hallie was pretty tired of opening gifts at this point... she really did have a fun Christmas I promise!
And it was a plus that we got to play with everyone while were at G&G's, even Great Grandma challenged us in Wheel of Fortune. Here's Dad and Hallie boxing each other.
And of course, it's not a visit at Grandma's without family pictures. Say cheese! (again)
After things settled down from the Christmas festivities, the girls (and Bentley!) went to Bronner's in Frankenmuth which is the world's largest Christmas store. We end up going every year and we never seem to get sick of all the millions of ornaments and Christmas decorations they have...see? I guess I can't speak for Syd, she doesn't seem to agree.
Then we took the kids (both big and little) to an indoor water park for a day which was so fun. Even the babies got some pool time which they both seemed to like.
This is Bentley and I with my sister, Stacey...
Brittany and Tenley...
Daddy and Syd cruise down the lazy river...
Hallie's jumping in the water hoping Uncle Ryan will catch her... eek!
Bentley just liked chillin' in his onesie for once instead of always being bundled up since it's winter time.
All in all it was a fun and busy Christmas!
And to add to the festivities I've gotten some ideas in blog land about doing these birthday mantels with pictures of the birthday child every year and it completed the birthday decor. Hallie loved seeing pictures of previous birthdays and what she looked like.
So I bought hats, binoculars, and Grandma Drake made satchels for each guest. Ooh I got way too carried away with the whole "scavenger hunt" theme. I took the idea and ran a marathon with it! But look how cute it turned out! The kids LOVED the getup we had for them.
Look how stinkin' cute Syd looks!
Then I came up with six clues that lead to different places in the house. At each clue station they had to complete an activity in order to get the prize to put in their satchels.
At this clue station they had to go bowling and knock down five pins to win their prize...
At this clue station they had to use their bodies like wiggle worms and inch their way across the floor...
Here's her birthday cake... the hat is made out of frosting... yep, that's right! I'm rather proud of myself for coming up with that idea and executing it perfectly :) Hallie loved the cake which is important! 
She got some great gifts too...
I also found the idea to ask her the same list of questions each year to see how the answers have changed as she gets older and eventually I'll put them in a book for her. Here are some of her answers:
