The fun didn't end with our 5th Christmas celebration. Oh no, we had a full social calendar all the way through to January 7th! We really soaked up all the time we could with out of town family and friends.
On the Saturday after Christmas we had a party at Aunt Diane & Uncle Garry's house with the whole Eichinger side to celebrate Jenae, Jeremy, Lennon and River being in town from Colorado. Dan & Amy, with John, Kate & Will also came up from Springfield for a visit. The result was a rowdy, fun afternoon & evening with 9 kids under the age of 8. We had a kid for every year of age! Luke had a blast playing with all those big kids.
Lennon - 7
John - 6
River - 5
Kate & Will - 4
Orrin - 3
Luke & Jackson - 2
Lila -1
Baby Girl Baranko - still 0
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| Jenae and Ben |
Then the next day Kristin & Cory came back down to our house from WI to visit with Ben & Linda. Matt & Ben's cousin Theresa came over too, which was awesome! She is so fun and all of us chatted for hours while PJ & Luke played together. It was a really fun, low key visit. I'm sure everyone enjoyed "leftover" night at the Baranko household:)
I love how Luke & PJers got so much QT during their visit.
Ben & Linda, Kristin, Cory & PJ had not all been gone for more than 45 minutes before the Richardson's arrived to celebrate New Year's Eve with us. We know how packed their trips back to the Midwest are, visiting both Katie & Joe's family, so we're so grateful that we nabbed them for the holiday! Isabelle is getting so big, and even cuter by the minute, if that is possible. See for yourself in the pictures below. We had a nice celebration, toasting the New Year with champagne and sparkling cider for me. It was a far cry from the wild New Year's Eves of our youths, but I would have it no other way:) Welcome 2013! We know this is going to be a very special and wonderful year.
Between the festivities we managed to convert the guest room into Luke's new big boy room. It won't be long before our new baby girl needs the nursery, so we thought it was time to transition Luke to his new room. Mom and Dad were kind enough to give us my old childhood bedroom furniture set (thanks Dad & Cory for helping Matt load it into the UHaul!) and my friend Hannah gave us a glider chair she didn't need any longer. So other than buying a trucks/trains/planes/tractors themed bedding set, we were pretty much all set for Luke's room through some hand me downs. Perfect! Matt set up Luke's new train table in his new room, a Christmas gift from G&G Baranko, to get him used to hanging out in that room. He LOVES his train table, so loves the new room. We didn't start him sleeping in his new room quite yet, since we knew we still had a week of house guests who would need to stay in that room on the Aerobed. But it was a gentle introduction, which is what we wanted.
