Busy Christmas weekend

Keegan was making Calvin laugh like crazy

Gavin, super sweet and innocent, right?

Sad to say, but this was the only pic we got of the 4 kids together. Poor Gavin was a little tired.

All the Grissom grandchildren.

Don't let this picture fool you, these 2 can wrestle like you've never seen. They do love each other, though!

The best we can get with all the family trying to look at the camera.

By looking at these 2 pics you can tell Calvin's job is to try and keep up with his big sis. I can't express just how much he looks up to her!

Emerald trying to decide what she wants to paint on her face.

The final choice, a butterfly!

Although, I don't think she needs paint, she's pretty cute anyway.

We received a better pic than this from Garmin, but this was the best I got with my camera.

This weekend was jam-packed!! We started out by making our gingerbread house Friday night. Saturday morning Garmin had their annual Christmas party for the kids. Have I mentioned that I LOVE that Skip works at Garmin?? They are so incredibly awesome to their employees!!! We feel so blessed to have ended up in such a great place and at such an amazing company. Thanks, Garmin, for giving the kids a chance to visit with Santa, enjoy yummy treats, and many other things. They had people there to do hair braiding (Emers was not interested), balloon animals (the line was too long for sweet Calvin), and face painting, which Emerald enjoyed. Calvin was not in the mood for one more line after waiting patiently for Santa. Emerald was a great translator when Santa asked what Calvin wanted, race cars, and what she wanted, (energetically) a baby doll!! She's going to get a real-live baby doll soon after Christmas!! :)

The party was fun and encouraged the kids to sleep on our trip down to Wichita after the party. We traveled down to visit with Steph's parents, although it was brief, and to see our friend, Stephanie and her boys. Steph traveled all the way from New Jersey, so we had to go and visit. Man those boys are growing up so fast. Steph's mom was kind enough to let us crash their family Christmas time and to feed us a great meal--thanks Cassie!! We had a great time, even though it was short. Steph and her sister, Tami, enjoyed laughing over my expanding mid-section, commenting that they'd waited a long time to see that! So have we!! The kids played like they were together all the time, even though Emerald and Keegan haven't played since June, and honestly, Calvin didn't play much with Gavin even then.

We had to cut our visit a little short, due to weather coming in and our having to drive back to KC in the weather. It was kind of yucky ice part of the way, with horrible high winds. It worried me a little after our car accident last year. I joked with Skip that I could have added to the stress of the drive home by claiming to be in labor :) He didn't find it too humerous! We made it home thru the winds, ice, and snow and actually were able to discuss baby names. I think we may have our top 3 picks of both boy and girl names. Maybe Lobster will end up with a name after all (although Lobster is growing on us all). Sorry, you'll have to wait until this baby decides to enter the world to find out 1) if it's a boy or girl, and 2) just which name we chose in the end. I know, that really makes some of you mad. Sorry, but that's just the way we do things and it works for us!! Only about 70 days left until our actual due date anyway, so really it's not too far away!