Our First Christmas in Belgium

CLAIRE

KADE

 My sister and her family arrived in Belgium on Christmas Eve, and we were so excited to have family here to celebrate with us.  Of course I had to come down with a virus the day before, so I wasn't feeling all that great, but we managed to get some Christmas traditions squeezed in....and the  cookie decorating began!

                               

DRAKE

PRESLEE

                        

GRACE

Then Daddy read The Night Before Christmas....

Christmas Morning

Preslee finally got her iTouch

Drake was excited about every gift he got!

Kade was so worried the night before that Santa would not have enough room to lay out all the gifts, so we had to move the coffee table for him to quit asking about it.  He's our little worrier....

After our Christmas morning, the kids played and we lounged around a bit.  We had a great Christmas dinner that night with our family and good friends.  Then sickness hit us again...Preslee was up all night vomiting and I came down with a bad cold.  The next day Mike had to take Brittiney and family to downtown Brussels sightseeing by himself, while Preslee and I rested.  

Tuesday we went to a Christmas Market in Ghent, and walked around the town a bit.  It was a nice town with great little shops and of course a beautiful church.  We had a nice lunch then headed back home.

 

Wednesday and Thursday we went to Paris for some fun sightseeing.  After we figured out the metro system, we finally arrived downtown and the kids were starving.  Of course we saw a McDonalds and had to go.  It was a crazy mad house and we barely even found a table.  

We had a night tour that evening and had a few hours before it started, so we decided to walk to a few sights.

Notre Dame Cathedral was even more gorgeous at night.  It was very busy, the line to get in was long but went really fast.  The nativity scene was beautiful and my pics don't do it justice.  They were beginning Mass as we were leaving.  There was some kind of riot outside the church, so we decided it was a good time to leave and walk to the Louvre.

Outside the Louvre

We had an illuminations bus tour that night and it was pretty good.  We were able to catch a glimpse of many of the Paris sights at night all lit up.  It was late and a few of the kids fell asleep.  We went to a pizza place afterward and it was great.  I know James loved the egg that was in the middle of his pizza!
YUMMY!!




 Eiffel Tower

I love this pic of the kids that Mike took!  They were so embarrassed that he laid on the ground in front of everyone to take it.

Paris Christmas market

                         Drake enjoyed his hot chocolate!

We walked around a bit longer that day then decided to head home.  It wasn't as easy as we thought it would be....  The traffic was so crazy downtown!  

Britt and I were in one car with the girls and the boys were in another car.  We decided to not take a left that the navigation was telling us to (because it was a crazy mess), and that lead us into two hours of pretty much sit still, gridlock traffic.  Of course the guys took the left so they weren't in as bad of traffic as we were.  It was just mass chaos and we just had to laugh the whole time.  At one point we were in the middle of about 50 cars going 50 different directions because the stop light was out and no one wanted to give way to anyone else, plus you have the huge busses trying to squeeze in too.  We finally made it home about an hour after the guys did, but at least we have a funny story to tell. :)

The next day everyone had realized how much we had walked and walked with tired, achy legs.  My ankles were huge and my whole body was sore, but baby decided to still stay in and not make an early appearance like I was hoping.

So still waiting....