The Afterparty

You might think that Christmas fun has to end at Christmas, but you'd be wrong. In our case, we like to stretch the holiday as far as we can and this year was no exception.

Wednesday morning, Michele Ball and her girls, Rachel and Rebekah, came bearing gifts. Tim and I got Walmart gift cards (just our size) and Alex got a very sporty and boyish basketball game that hopefully makes up for the rocking chair/baby doll situation from the day before. Of course, he still hasn't caught on to the whole "wrapping paper is not the gift" concept, but he will learn.

Only six months old and already loves being surrounded by girls...

Wednesday afternoon, we had planned to meet up with all of our friends and their children at the Primms' house (Seth's parents' house, not his). There ended up being a veritable mob of kids and their folks, so let me give you a quick rundown of who goes with who. First there's us and Alex, us being Tim, myself, and Leah. Then, of course, there's Seth and Joy Primm with 18 month old Oliver who also live in NW Arkansas near us. Then we have Scott and Amanda Cooley who have the precious little girl you met in an earlier post, 9 month old Rebekah. There's Mark and Laura Day who live in Eldo, and they have an 18 month old boy named Jack and also have baby boy #2 on the way. There's Jacob and Kelly Cheshier who live in Kingsport, TN, and they have a 2 year old boy, Ethan, a 9 month old girl named Sadie, and baby #2 on the way. Joey and Jennifer Legg have Will Franklin who is around a year old, and Steven and Abbey Weems (not pictured - they came a little later) lead the pack with three "babies" - 5 year old Luke, 2 year old Emma Grace, and 9 month old Lauren.

Pheeewwww.

So that's a grand total of...14 parents, 9 kids, two fetuses, and an Auntie. And that's not including Seth's folks and their doggie Sanky (sp?), who happens to be Murphy Pup's mama, btw.

We were so excited to get everyone together because really, the only ones in the group that get to see each other on a regular basis are us and the Primms (Seth, Joy, and Oliver Primm, not Seth's parents). It was so so so much fun to see everyone and let our kids run/crawl amok together.

One particular source of entertainment for the evening was watching Ethan pull Jack and Sadie around in Oliver's wagon. The wagon was a little back heavy and had the tendency to dump out its contents when tugged too vigorously. We all held our breath in anticipation of one of the kiddos spilling out onto the ground, but none of us tried to stop them from doing it. It was a "thrill of the sport" kind of thing (check out the dads' expressions in the background). In the end, no permanent damage was done, and we all had some good laughs.

As usual, Alex hadn't slept well that day, so he had to take a power nap to keep up with the energetic crowd. Luckily Auntie L's shoulder is comfy so he had a nice place to catch a few z's.

His beauty rest paid off because I think he impressed baby Lauren with his devilish good looks. Again with the girls! I think he and I are gonna need to have a little talk...