Holiday Rewind

In all the excitement with finding out we have a new little bun baking in my oven - I didn't even post about the holidays at all!  We had a wonderful Christmas season and had so much fun ringing in the new year!



Merry Christmas 2011
The VanWieren's



We started off celebrating Christmas the week before by spending a Saturday evening having dinner at my Grandma & Grandpa B's with my parents and brother and all of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  We sure had a house full - in all I think there were 30 of us there!

Aiden with Great Grandma & Grandpa B

Traditionally the Sunday before Christmas is spent with my dads extended family - his aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins...and etc.  Our group is so big (130 I think one of the Great Aunts said) that we have to rent a hall to hold us all!  We eat a huge dinner, the kids all gather and sing Christmas carols and Santa even stops by for a visit.  Poor Aiden was TERRIFIED of the jolly man in the red suit.  Not only did Aiden want NOTHING to do with Santa, he even cried when some of his other cousins sat on Santa's lap.  He kept saying Santa GO HOME! Even though he was bawling his eyes out, you couldn't help but laugh a bit at his reaction.

Christmas Eve and part of Christmas morning were spent at my mom & dad's house.  On Saturday we had a steak dinner (yum!) before going to the candelite Christmas Eve service at church and then we were up bright and early Christmas morning to open presents with Mom, Dad and James.  We all got a ton of great stuff and Aiden got the most beautiful kitchen set made by my parents! He loves playing with it - anything that can fit into the oven goes in the oven to "bake." 

Aiden with Grammy & Papa

After opening gifts at my parents we loaded up the van and drove back to Holland and spent the rest of Christmas Day with Scotts family. When we arrived we had brunch with his mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, brother and brothers girlfriend. After brunch we opened even more gifts and Aiden got a lawn mower (that he now loves to chase our dog Jack with), shopping cart and tons of clothes!  This kid made out like a bandit between both sides of the family!

Aiden with Nana & Grandpa

The week between Christmas and New Years was spent celebarting the holidays with even more family (Scott's side) and spending extra time with Matt & Kat before they went home to Colorado.  We rang in the New Year by spendign NYE at my cousin Jeff's house with a group of 16 couples (Aiden hang out with Grammy & Papa at my Aunt Dee & Uncle Les' house).  And then again on New Years Day we went back to Jeff & Lisa's house and celebrated Christmas with my mom's side of the family.  Dinner was delicious and we had SO many desserts that it was hard to choose which to eat!  Aiden had a blast playing with off of his cousins and we had fun looking at our Terpstra Christmas book and all the new pages that were added this year.



Terpstra Family Christmas 2011

Its amazing how fast 2011 went and the very end of the year was so busy with all of our holiday plans that I can hardly still believe that its 2012!! Here's to a year filled with great things to come - the Terpstra Family Cruise (March, 2012), my cousins wedding in Texas (May, 2012??), 4th of July camping at Higgins Lake with a huge group of family (July, 2012) and Baby #2 (September, 2012).  Whew! Our 2012 is busy aready and we are only on day 3 of 365!