Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Van Pelt Christmas Gathering

We changed up our annual Christmas get together with my dad's side of the family this year. We usually go to Uncle Wells and Aunt Alison's house the weekend right before Christmas. This year we did it a little earlier in the month of December and did it in Greenville, instead of Charlotte. It was my first time to host the gathering but everyone made it super easy by bringing basically all of the food! Aunt Kathy brought her amazing salad with pears and pecans and blue cheese (YUM! Even the boys liked it except for the blue cheese ha!), some appetizers and Tar Heel pie (chocolate pie that I also sometimes call Tiger pie ;). Uncle Wells made his famous crab stew, which is so good but he refuses to share the recipe with anyone! All I had to do was put out a few apps and some beverages - easy peasy!

We just visited for a few hours,  grazed on the food, hung out outside since it was such a mild day, and also opened presents, which is so fun with little kids around again!

Here are a few pictures from the day!

Beautiful cousins -
Elizabeth, Virginia, Abigail & Mary Margaret

Shanghai was reading to William in a little nook they created

Ryan snuggling with Alison

Kathy, William and Virginia

Uncle Wells and Ryan

Fresh air and a fire pit - yay!

William loving on Uncle Dunc

KIDS!
Time for presents!

Passing out the gifts

lots of excitement!

Shanghai checking out a gift

Selfie time with all the girls + William haha

Love my family

Girl cousins + William (again!)

I will call this one: reflections; hahaha!

The men!
Uncle Wells, Uncle Duncan, Thomas and my dad

One of my fave people in the world!
Aunt Kathy and me
This next series of pictures makes me crack up! One of the little gifts the boys got was this little bubble blower device, and Stokes wouldn't put it down. While Aunt Kathy was holding him, he decided it was the perfect time to blow some bubbles...right in her face! What a stinker. Everyone was laughing so hard!

Perfect timing on the picture

He's a stinker

Still laughing...
Sunday morning my dad and Shanghai went to church with us before they got headed back toward Jacksonville. I'm so glad that they made the effort to come all the way up here for a relatively short visit. It meant a lot to have them here since we don't see them very often at all.

Grandpa Stokes and William

The boys with Shanghai

Sweet kids

Grandpa Stokes and his grandsons

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