Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you have been having a wonderful holiday, I know I have! Its been very relaxing and I have been a very lazy girl, its fabulous!
Christmas Eve was lovely and meaningful. I spent a good chunk of the evening running around doing 'behind the scenes' stuff with organizing the kids for the continued nativity story and being on 'light' duty for the dance as Kara had to be in it as one of the older girls couldn't be at the service. Ken filmed it this time with no issues, andso here is the second performance.
As promised a picture as Ariel as Mary and Ben her Joseph.
Following the service we drove around looking at the lights, always fun, although the kids were eager to go home and eat! While the snacks cooked (mushroom caps & meatballs yummy) we got into our jammies and took our annual photo in front of the tree! Xander didn't fight the process this year, and its amazing how balancing a toy car on my camera can help, haha.
We watched Veggie Tales - St Nicholas and then tucked the kids in bed... however only one stayed. Xander had fallen asleep during the Christmas Eve service and was not going to bed anytime soon. Sigh...so after laying with him and nearly falling asleep myself, we finally decided that I would 'set up' and Ken would keep Xander 'occupied' so he doesn't come downstairs while I am busy.
Took be about an hour to get things out of hiding places (you need to be creative when you have no closet doors yet), getting them under the tree, wrapping a few things I forgot, and filling stockings. When it was all done it was close to 1am, gack! I took a picture of the glow of the tree and fireplace... so peaceful.
When I went up to our room, Ken was already asleep but guess who was wide awake watching Thomas the train on our bed? Oh Xander! So we snuggled and soon he finally gave up the fight and went to sleep. Thankfully no one woke up till past 7am, and it was Ken who woke up first, a change for sure since he usually is the hardest to wake up. We all got up and came downstairs, the kids were excited and opened their stockings to fun treasures!
I popped the make ahead breakfast goodies into the oven while we started presents. Xander definitely caught on this year about opening things. He was getting so excited and overwhelmed he started to shake at one point.
Ariel got some Littlest Pet Shop toys, a Marie-Grace doll (thanks AG for the amazing sale) and a talking Bacon stuffed toy from Uncle Dan.
Both kids got Furbys...
...and Mommy too, my cute white one... I haven't grown up yet. Xander seems to like getting them all together for 'furby' chats. Maybe he understands them, haha.
We did dinner at Dad and Rita's with the rest of the family. Yummy turkey and the fixins' - althought I always miss the leftovers when you don't cook yourself... must make turkey over break at some point.
The past few days have been a blur since we haven't done much of anything. Its been AWESOME! Staying in pjs, resting, playing and just hanging out together. I said on facebook the best vacations are the ones where you wake up and have no clue what day it is. Haha.
Planning some outtings and visits with people next week, and an Open House that we have wanted have since we moved. Should be fun times and I am eager to ring in 2013. Whee!
1 comment:
Beautiful blog. Your Christmas is like out of a storybook!
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