Ellie turned six on the 28th. We told her not to, but she did anyway. What's with kids getting older?!

Benjamin and Christina flew home that day, so the kids and I headed over first thing to be able to spend the morning with them before they left. Their flight ended up being delayed so had time to go to the beach with everyone (minus Timmy and Jill). Benjamin, Christina and I watched these guys jump in the waves.

The Gallo kids really loved the waves. They both came home soaking wet!

Six.

After the beach, Benjamin and Christina left for the airport and my kids and I went home for nap time. The Gallos came over later in the afternoon so I got to snuggle with my favorite snuggler.

Then we all went to The Habit for Ellie's birthday dinner.

Still six!

We ended the night with $1 ice cream cones.

Happy birthday, Ellie!

Timmy was back at it with his amazing photography skills. I love these pictures he took of the kids...

On Wednesday, my mom invited some of Benjamin's friends and their families over. J.C. was a good friend of Benjamin in middle school and Jake and Benjamin were close in high school. Now J.C. and Jake are both married to super sweet girls with lots of kids between the both of them. There were a lot of kids running around while the adults got to chat and catch up.

Speaking of lots of kids, my parents offered to watch these six hooligans for the night... 

while the eight of us (including Andy our photographer) went out to eat. It was fun to have an adult only night. 

The day after Christmas, Joey and I met up with the Gallos and Timmy and his girlfriend, Jill, at In-N-Out for lunch. Andy and the girls ended up going to the mall because Ellie wanted to spend some of her Christmas money on a jumbo Beanie Boo like the one Hannah got from Santa. Apparently Santa thought that since she already had a jumbo Beanie Boo, that was enough.

Then it was back to my parents' house for badminton...

and other games.

That afternoon/evening my mom's side of the family came over for appetizers and...you guessed it...a sing-along. I'm so sorry. Feel free to scroll quickly! :-)

The three extra kids here are actually my cousins. They get along super well with my kids.

This time it was Andy and Hannah rocking "five golden rings!"

They were really feeling it.

Too funny.

Christmas morning is always so special. This year Andy's parents came over bright and early, and then the kids came down at 7:00 (although I heard them up earlier than that). They are always dazzled by the stack of presents.

Christmas Eve was a little different for us this year because it was on a Sunday. The church we wanted to go to (the church I grew up in) didn't have an evening service, so we just went to the morning service.

Saturday morning (the day before Christmas Eve) we headed over to my parents house first thing in the morning to paint rocks.

It was a Krause Christmas this year, and all my family came into town. Benjamin and Christina were the first to arrive. They happened to get in the same day that Andy's parents flew back from Philadelphia, and everyone showed up for Hannah's basketball game. She had quite the crowd of cheerleaders!