Project 52: December 20-29 (Christmas trip to Michigan)

This is our entire trip to Michigan, so it's a few days more than the normal weekly post....

 

We left our house on Friday night at 10pm to head to the airport for our red eye flight to Detroit.  Mimi and Papa had NO idea we were coming!!! We didn't tell the kids until the night before.  It was a fun week and the best part was surprising them.

unloaded and ready to go into the airport

 

 

 

The circus is coming to town!!
We only had four car seats, two suitcases and several carry ons...

 

 

I sat with Colt and Elliana in the row in front of Brent with Declan and Elliana.  We knew they would sleep better in their car seats and it worked so well!

 

 

Colt doesn't sleep well in the ergo, and kept pulling at Elliana and keeping her awake...even thought it was 1am, so I put Colt in the car seat and he fell asleep instantly.  Elliana couldn't get comfortable on my lap so she went on the floor and fell asleep instantly and it was a great plane ride!

 

 

We landed in Detroit at 6am and the kids waited next to the baggage claim while eating bananas while Brent got the rental van.  We drove up to Mimi and Papa's house and arrived at 10am.

 

We parked near their house and snuck up quietly and knocked on the door.  It was quite a surprise!!

Saturday afternoon Auntie Dre, Adele, and Isaiah arrived! The kids favorite activity all week was watching the snails and 'nemo' in the fish tank.

 

Saturday evening we had a Christmas party with Mimi's side of the family.  It has been the first time I several years that we have been there, and the first time for the youngest three kids to be there to meet family.  We had a delicious dinner and then Santa made an appearance!

Declan loves olives!

 

Elliana was very content on Mimi's lap and had no desire to go sit with Santa

Colt got this little light up ball from Santa and he started walking at the party to go after it!

Sunday when we walked out of church it was snowing.  It wasn't much at all, but the kids were excited.  Raelynn had been talking about how she wanted to eat the snow....so that was the first thing she did!

 

The kids all had a picnic in the family room and watched Frozen

 

 

 

Raelynn asked for a fire.  The kids wanted to roast marshmallows:)

 

Hot cocoa with the fire!

 

 

We also made lots of Christmas treats...

Someone snagged a chocolate kiss!

Want some cookies with those sprinkles?

 

 

We can't make a trip to Michigan without stopping at Bronner's Christmas store.  Especially at Christmas!

 

 

We also ate an amazing chicken dinner at Zender's.

family style dinner.  Seriously, one of the best dinners ever.

Declan enjoying his ice cream that had melted

ready to go to Christmas Eve service

After Christmas Eve service we went home and had appetizers and snacks.

 

It snowed on Christmas Eve! The kids were excited to wake up to snow (obviously not a lot because you can still see the grass)

Christmas stockings

 

Cousins all together on Christmas morning!

 

 

 

 

My good friend from college came to visit! So fun to see my friends Sarah and Kala and their son.  Last time we saw them he was two weeks old!

 

 

My high school friends were also able to get together at my house while we were home.  25 years of friendship in this picture!

Declan saying good bye to his buddies

Declan and Colt left Sunday with Brent.  I took the girls home on Monday.  We went straight from the airport to the doctor's office and discovered Elliana had a double ear infection! Poor thing had a rough last few days while we were in Michigan.  Even with her pain she did great on the plane.  I think we all got a little nap in on the way home:)