De Haan Christmas

We celebrated the De Haan Christmas a few days after Christmas as Derek's brother and his family didn't get to Iowa until the 28th. It was actually nice to have our Christmas stuff all spread out so we weren't so busy! As part of the get-together, we went to the Ramada Inn in Des Moines one night to let the kids go swimming at the waterpark. Both of the little kiddos had lots of fun playing in the water!

This is Bella's expression and gesture when she really really wants someone to "walk" with her. Apparently she didn't want to model her little swimsuit!
Mommy and Daddy took turns taking Bella down the slide a few time. We held her up at the end so she didn't get drenched in water. :) She's not a fan of that yet!
But she does LOVE to splash!
And kick!
Bella is definitely a fan of swimming!
Afterwards the little lady was pretty wiped out from swimming so she had to rest on the chair with nigh-nigh to watch Elmo. She was also tired because we had a rough night in the hotel- our first bad sleeping night with Bella at another place. She is usually a great sleeper, but we forgot our sound machine that plays in her room, so we don't think she slept as well without that.

That night, we opened presents with the whole family. Bella got lots of other cool toys! Great-Grandma Vermeer gave her a Elmo juke box/karaoke machine. She was a big fan!

Giving a nice hug. :)
She also got a new coloring books and colors, which was also a big hit with Bella.
Matt, Melissa, and Cayden got Bella a doodle pro and a book. The doodle pro has also been very loved as she can color to her heart's desire and erase it all.
Apparently this was Bella's year for big presents! That evening, it was a new desk for Bella to color at from Grandpa and Grandma DeHaan. Obviously she didn't really get what it was until it was put together, but she has had lots of fun sitting at her desk and coloring since then, even though she's a little short for it yet.
The annual family photo, which was taken on a stack of books. :)
Grandpa and Grandma with the two grandchildren. Bella needed nigh-nigh at this point. She was still pretty wiped out from the night at the hotel, so she wasn't in the best of moods unfortunately.
But we managed to get a smile out of her later!