Christmas Eve with the Dawkins!

My mom's side of the family always gets together at my grandmother's house on Christmas Eve night.  We have finger foods, snacks, ham biscuits and later we open presents.  This is the night that I was talking about in my post yesterday.  All 9 of us grandchildren would wait patiently around the tree, just staring at the piles of presents until someone told us that we could get started!  It always seemed like the adults took FOREVER to be ready!

I didn't take pictures, but we started the night watching a compilation of video clips that my cousin, Jessica, organized and put to music.  My grandfather was in a lot of the clips and I don't think there was a dry eye in the room from laughing and crying.  It was so funny to see my aunts and uncles at my age now and see all of us crazy grandchildren running around being silly.  My how clothing and hair styles have changed, we were all fashions victims, old and young.  One thing I did notice though is how YOUNG all of my aunts and uncles looked...I know that sounds like such a naive thing to say but they did!  And I've never thought that they look OLD now...its just amazing how much you change over the years...I  completely blame it on the children :)  Anyway, I told my mom afterwards that I'm always running from the camera because "I'm not wearing any makeup" or because I'm in my "around the house" clothes, or my hair doesn't look right...I've come to the realization that I'm as young as I'm going to ever be again so I need to start cheesing for the camera every time it comes out because this is as good as its going to get!!

This group can get kind of loud and crazy at times so it can be a little overwhelming to someone that is not used to a big family.  Last year, my uncle Jody made my grandma play "Let's Make a Deal" for her present :)  Other years we have all played games and we have also provided Christmas for a needy family in lieu of gifts to each other.  We always have so much fun and you never know what may be going on with this bunch of crazies :)

And we wonder why the grandchildren love Papa...he's always handing out food!  Owen eating a ham biscuit.

Kellan shoving in a biscuit before mommy notices.

We don't do this every year but I think we should start.  Here are my aunts and uncles and my mom.  Uncle Mike in the front, Uncle Jody, mom, Aunt Tammy, and Aunt Tracie

The siblings with their mom, my grandma.  I'm not sure what Jody is doing to Mike's hair :)

This is going to be a must-do tradition!  Every year when we were kids we always took pictures on this sofa together.  I wish I had one of all of us on the computer to compare to this one.  These are the great-grandchildren:  Kellan, 14 months, Owen, 3 years, Eden, 12 months, and Brooklyn, 7 months

I wonder what was going on over there?

And then we tried to re-enact the grandchildren picture...except we don't all fit on the sofa anymore!  We were supposed to be getting in order from oldest to youngest and I think this may actually be right.  From left to right:  Me, Dana, Chad, Jessica (my sister), Jessica, Brandon, Grae, Colby, and Bailey, the youngest, laying across everyone.

There were many attempts....

and we finally got a good one with every one's eyes open!

My grandma with all of her presents :)

Owen showing off his belly...we are not sure why :)

Opening presents used to be about us...now its ALL about the babies!

Trying to get Kellan to look at daddy taking pictures but he is just too excited about his My First Story Reader because it was talking to him.

The cutest outfit EVER from Colby!  

He snuck away to get into Brooklyn's gifts...who doesn't like a pink hippo?

Holding on to his firetruck in his lap and trying to open the barking dog from great-grandma at the same time.

Brooklyn loving on her new outfit.

Eden modeling her new outfit...

I think somebody is excited about their new laptop :)

It always happens...what do the babies want?  The bows! :)

We could have just stopped with gifts for Kellan after this night.  He got so many things, I will try to remember them all:  A penguin singing bath toy, Eight Silly Monkeys, a Goodnight Moon puzzle, a musical train set, a fire truck that lights up and makes siren noises, a dog that barks when you take his bone, Little Honey Bear and the Smiley Moon, a snowman sweater vest, a red puffy vest, a plaid shirt and jeans, and the My First Story Reader. Christmas Eve at grandma's is my favorite day of the whole year and I always look forward to it!  I can't wait to watch these babies grow up together and pretty soon we will have a new group sitting around the Christmas tree waiting on US!