Last week, the Peine cousins and their parents made their way to Gainesville to celebrate Christmas with a Las Posadas and Latin twist. We spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, getting the house ready, grocery shopping, and prepping for our company. There were nineteen of us in all, so it was certainly a full house!
Rosemary vacuumed all the carpeted rooms in the house for me. She was a tremendous helper as we got ready for the big day.
While it was warm and pleasant throughout the morning and most of the afternoon, rain was forecasted to start around the time we were going to be eating dinner. So Jonathan spent one evening clearing out our garage so we could set tables up and have a roof over our heads while we ate.
Everyone arrived around 1:30 and 2pm. We had chips, salsa, queso, and vegetables to snack on throughout the afternoon.
We played some Minute-To-Win-It games in the afternoon. First up was Jingle Buns, a game in which the player straps box filled with jingle bells around his waste and tries to shake them out in a minute. (The official name for this game is “Junk in the Trunk” but I tried to make it more kid-friendly. Jonathan called it “Jingle Balls” on accident and really made it less so, but completely cracked me up).
Next, we played a game (that I) called Snowball Nose. The players had a dab of vaseline on their nose and had to move cotton balls from one place to another using only their noses.
Rosemary found that she could stick more than one to her nose at a time.
Matthew, Breanna, and Ian also gave it a go.
Going back for more cotton balls,
Next up the kids played a game where they had to use only their teeth to pick up five different sized paper bags and run them across the yard. The shortest ones definitely had the advantage on this one.
Sarah was a star on this one
Ben played too.
Ezekiel did very well.
We tried to play the Stack the Cups game, but it was a bit too windy outside for it.
Lastly, we played Face the Cookie.
You start with a cookie on your forehead, then using only your face muscles and gravity, work it to your mouth. (Can I just tell you what a great family I have that they actually were willing to even try to play this game!)
Tim tried it standing up
Everyone had a different method
Michelle and Breanna were the only ones to successfully get the cookie from their foreheads to their mouths in under a minute.
Some of the kids hanging out in the hammock.
After the games, we watched the kids perform their parts from the various programs they were in at their churches. Then we made our way inside to open presents from Grandma and Grandpa.
This year, the kids opened in alphabetical order
Charlotte enjoyed some time with Uncle Tim
What a full, beautiful, messy room.
While the kids finished up opening their gifts and stockings, I finished up dinner. We had Cuban-style roasted pork with onions, black beans with cilantro, rice, plantains, salad, and Cuban bread.
Our musical Christmas table. I found sheet music from the used bookstore of Latin American favorites for the organ so we used those as our table runner to tie in loosely with our theme.
No pics of the food, but we consumed it with vigor. Michelle made a delicious cheesecake for us to finish up our meal.
We wrapped up the night with the cousin book exchange.
Charlotte got a new Eric Carle book, Ben got a shark book, and Rosemary got Night of the Moonjellies.
We had such a great time with everyone and the time went so fast. I love this family. Every time we are together, I am reminded of how amazing they all are and am so thankful that our children look forward to seeing their cousins as much as we look forward to spending time with their parents. It was a great way to kick off the big Christmas celebrations of 2012.
