Friday (12/23) Christmas Eve Eve!! Daniel has been looking forward to this day for like a month. He has been insistent that we go out looking at lights on this night. But first our day started with some fun at home, board games, video games and Daniel and Dad went swimming together. Then we headed to our church for Christmas services. I volunteered in childcare for the first service then we all attended second service. It was a beautiful service, the band did fantastic with the music. And it was fun to have AJ and Daniel in church with us, they are normally in childcare.
After church, we headed out on Daniel's big adventure to see Christmas lights. Our "elf" had left a scavenger hunt for the boys and we all had a blast finding everything on the list. We spent over two hours in the car together driving around and looking at people's houses. Some of my favorite memories will be Zak dancing like crazy to Trans Siberian Orchestra, Daniel excitedly pointing out everything he could see and AJ being so excited to find our list item "Winnie the Pooh." We also went to two different houses with lights set to music. It was such an amazing family night!!
Saturday (12/24) Merry Christmas Eve! We started our day finishing a few things around the house that we needed to do. I finished addressing and mailed our Christmas cards (better late than never!) and we did some cleaning. Then we iced and decorated our brownies to bring to Uncle Carl's and Aunt Sarah's later today. We also played a little and relaxed, knowing we had a busy and late night ahead of us.
We headed over to Carl & Sarah's in the afternoon and the cousins all ran off to play together while the adults got some time to catch up. We enjoyed an awesome feast of the seven fishes cooked by Carl, while the kids enjoyed pasta and cookies. The kids all got their gifts and loved them. Vincent was excited to sit in his new chair from us and Isabelle loved her new Barbie & Calico Critters. AJ loved his Minecraft movie maker & made about 5 movies while we were there. Daniel and Zak enjoyed making creations with their new Bunchems set. Fun night for everyone!!
We got home and sprinkled our reindeer food in the yard, said Goodbye to our elf Doctor Donkey and headed to bed. The boys forgot to leave out milk & cookies & I didn't wake them up to remind them. Adrian and I got started on the rest of our wrapping and finished up around 1am. We had a small drink and snack and headed up to bed knowing we would probably have an early morning.
Sunday (12/25) Merry Christmas!! We were right, we did have an early morning, Zak was up at 5:30 and there was no putting him back to sleep. Daniel woke up about 15 minutes later so the 4 of us headed downstairs. We then spent close to 2 hours trying to keep them occupied and let AJ sleep a little. It wasn't easy, but we managed & at 7:30 everyone charged into AJ's room to wake him up and open presents!
We had huge piles this year because we had gifts from Santa, each other, my parents, Adrian's parents, my brother & Adrian's sister. It was a lot to get through and there were a lot of distractions, but we opened everything and managed to keep the kids controlled enough to see everything. They were so excited for all of their new stuff!
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| Piles - Before |
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| Piles - After |
After we finished opening, we spent the rest of the day playing. We opened almost everything, played with almost everything and ate a lot of junk. Adrian and I both were able to sneak in a nap so we could function for the day. We video chatted with my parents and also called my in-laws, brother and grandfather so while it stinks that we weren't together, at least we got to chat for a bit. We celebrated Jesus' birthday with a prayer from Daniel and an Oreo ice cream cake. Then we finished up with a movie night watching "Piggie Tales" (the Angry Birds pigs) and an early bedtime for all of us!
Monday (12/26) started late after we all slept in, yay!! We spent the day relaxing and chilling out as a family which was great. We played our new games (including Minecraft the card game, Castle Panic, King of Tokyo & Mario chess), played with our new toys and played some video games. I also took advantage of Adrian being home to get a few things crossed off my to do list. We finished up with home made pizza for dinner. It was a nice relaxing day and I'm hoping the next week of break will be just as relaxing!
Tuesday (12/27) we slept in again! I'm loving this break but a week from today I'm sure I'm going to be hurting. We had a lazy morning at home today with some TV and video games. Then after lunch our friends Michael & Daniel came over to play. The boys enjoyed playing together, including spending about an hour outside in our yard, while Katie and I enjoyed catching up. Love play dates like this!! The night ended with a game of Pete the Cat the board game and an early bed time especially for Daniel who spiked a fever tonight.
Wednesday (12/28) started as yesterday ended, with a sick Daniel. He has a fever and is not feeling well. He woke me up around 6am, was up for like an hour then went back to sleep for like 2 hours. Too bad the other two woke up so I had to stay up. Yawn. We had a relaxing day of TV, video games and board games so that Daniel could rest and recuperate. He seems much better as the day is going on.
Thursday (12/29) started late again with everyone sleeping in. We hung out and played and got a few things done around the house before our friends arrived to play in the afternoon. We had three boys over who have become friends with our three boys. AJ first met Brooks last year, they are in the same class. Then we realized that they had two other boys, similar in age to Daniel and Zak. So now we have giant playdates where all six boys play together. It's fun for them, a little stressful for the adults. They took turns playing video games on the TV in the living room and fighting zombies with Nerf guns in the rest of the house. It was a fun afternoon & we were all exhausted tonight!
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