The Radmacher Family: Another Christmas & a Happy New Year!

We have been lucky enough to live close to both of David & my families. One perk is that we get to spend Christmas with both of them each year...not both on the same day, but pretty close. A few days after Christmas we headed over to David's parent's house for a few days where his entire family was gathered. We had tons of fun as always.

Jaxon made a few new friends for life...Woody (in the second picture Jaxon was eating a banana and gave the other half to Woody...now that's a true friend!)..

and Uncle Steve. Steve was Jaxon's buddy this week. He would wake up in the morning and say "Teve?" We came home from Visalia and he kept bringing me the camera saying "Teve?" So Steve, I guess you guys will have to move close so Jax can have his new buddy close by! It was so fun to have everyone all together again, but it was especially nice to have Sara, Steve, and Addyson there. Since they live on the opposite side of the country, we only get to see them twice a year, so its always a real treat to have them visit!

There is always so much fun being had when all the grandkids get together. We heard a performance by Gwen, Jonah, Addyson, and Noah (bottom left picture) - a little something they put together on their own and were lucky enough to hear the Weibell boys sing for us accompanied by their dad on piano. Jaxon thought that he was part of the performance and stood up in the line with them while they sang (bottom middle).

The kids weren't the only ones who had all the fun - the adults did too! There were lots of late nights and of course the guys had their semi-annual golf game and the girls did a little shopping together (kid free!).

About the 2nd day in, everyone was all back from their trips visiting family elsewhere and we were all together, so we had a wonderful Radmacher Christmas. We have a pretty reasonable method of gift giving - each couple has one couple they gift to and each kid draws a name of another grandkid. It works out great - everyone gets presents, but we're not having to buy for 4 other families and 13 grandkids (okay, I guess 11 not including my own).

Jonah was excited to get a "Bad Iron Man" to fight his Iron Man from Santa and a K-Max set (like a mix between legos and an erector set) from Ma & Papa, and a detective kit from Alec.

Ma & Papa gave Jaxon the Fisher-Price Racin' Ramps Garage...man, you should have seen/heard him when he opened that present...lets just say it was the highlight of the evening! He (and the rest of the little kids) kept busy the rest of the time racin' cars down the ramp!

Jaxon didn't get a shiny new red bike (he's still a bit young for that), but he and the rest of the kids sure did get a kick out of sitting on it! (Just thought I'd clarify the picture above!).

We had a nice New Year's Eve. The guys went golfing in the morning and the girls shopping in the afternoon. There was lots of food and great company! We even had smores around a campfire (that's the perks of living in the country)!

We got off to an interesting start New Year's morning. Jonah woke up with a stomachache and threw up all day long. Two of his cousins had the same thing...its pretty much inevitable when 1 gets sick, they ALL do! That afternoon we took family pictures. Since 3 of the kids were sick (and 2 more were to be shortly there after), it made for some interesting pictures, but all-in-all the turned out good.

A neighbor took the family picts, but Sara (our own personal photographer in the fam) took picts for each of our individual families (except her own, I was lucky enough to take theirs!).

Of course no family picture would be complete without a goofy pose, right?
DJ, Rachel, Jacob, & Dylan
The Weibell Clan - Nick, Heidi, Joseph, Landon, Mathew, Alec, & Noah
Us (we haven't had the best of luck with family pictures lately...can you tell Jonah wasn't feeling good?)
Matt, Melinda, Gwen, Chase, and Collin
Chandlers - Steve, Sara, & Addyson

So the time finally came for us to go home.