Christmas extravaganza with the Baxters

Howdy all.  It seems we’ve made it through another Yule season!  The entire Baxter family was here for the weekend – even Ken and Gail made the eight hour trip with their two children!  It was good to all be in one place and to be able to relax (the last time we were together we were helping K+G move, not quite as relaxing).

Just before the fam. arrived, Wendy made up some good old Dutch boterkoek and brought it around to the neighbours.  She’s nice like that.

When the Baxter clan first arrived, Daelin (our niece) simply had to spend some time with Jan.  She loves babies, especially her baby cousin.

Rhys and Daelin were great to have around.  Daelin can be quite sassy.  Rhys loves bulldozers and such.

 Wendy’s family is very generous, and there were lots of excellent gifts to open.  I was left feeling a bit embarrassed, as their generosity far outstripped my own.  They really went all out with gifts for everyone, but especially for Jan.  It was their goal to ensure he has plenty of “noisy toys” (which he was seriously lacking [by design]).  Jan loves them.

Jan had fun sitting with Wendy through this whole process.  He seemed fascinated having other kids around.  He watches everything that goes on quite carefully.

And we did the family photos after church.  It’s a must during the holiday season, right?  Ken GQ started us off, and Daelin proved that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

But we did end up with some nice pictures:

Jan is a chatterbox these days, and he’s beginning to make forward progress in crawling.  He’s pretty mobile, and needs constant supervision.  It’s fun to watch him move around, and we need to be thoughtful – we can’t just leave him alone in a room if we need to go do (fill in the blank), not even for a moment.  I know all you more experienced parents out there are laughing at us, but this is something to get used to!  We’ll learn as we go.