An Early Christmas

The Sunday before Christmas, we went over to Geoff and Kathye's to visit with family. Robert's younger brother, Jon, and his family (Molly and new baby daughter, Tess) were down from Virginia. They weren't going to be around for Christmas because they were heading up to Utah the next day to visit with friends and family. But while they were in California, we got to spend an evening with them.

We love getting together and the kids love playing with their cousins. They were especially excited to see their brand new cousin because she was just born in August and we had only seen pictures of her. Her pictures are cute, but they don't do her cuteness justice =).

Amanda with Tess

There is always rough-housing with an aunt or an uncle and this time was no exception. It's a running joke that it's not a family get-together until one of the kids gets hurt and cries =). This picture says it all.

Uncle Jon is the one being pummeled by Amanda on the left

Because Jon and Molly weren't going to be around for Christmas, we got to open up some gifts early. The kids really liked that part. Rainer was especially excited because we had gifts under our tree and he knew that he couldn't touch them until it was Christmas (I had to remind him the next day not to touch ours because it wasn't Christmas yet--that was probably very confusing for him.)

We had a lot of fun and enjoyed spending time with everyone. We even took a family picture because everyone was there.

(back row standing around couch: Bobbi, Mason, Alyssa, Caitlyn, Amanda, Derrick, Geoff, and Kathye.
on the couch: Jon, Tess, Molly, Gerry, and Rainer.
in front of the couch: Heidi, Robert, and Leslie.)

What a good looking bunch.