Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 12/21 - 12/27)

Monday (12/21) - It's our first official day of winter break and we enjoyed it! We started off by sleeping in this morning and then having a relaxing day. Adrian was the only one who had to get up and head upstairs to work for the day. I headed out to get a much needed pedicure and run a few other quick errands in the morning. Then after lunch the boys took a break from video games to get some work done. Daniel and I made crumb cake for his ELA project while AJ and Zak made ornaments and a tray for cookies and milk. We were all really productive in the hour and then the boys headed back upstairs to play video games. I spent the rest of the day working on stuff around the house, which is my number one goal for the next two weeks, finish everything on my to do lists.

The day passed quickly and before long it was time to get dinner together for everyone. Rocky and I headed out for a long walk trying to see the Christmas star, but unfortunately it was too cloudy for us to be able to see it tonight. After dinner, we cleaned up from the day and then got ready for our evening. Adrian was stuck working late so we decided to postpone our trip to see the light shows again and stayed home to hang out with him. We watched last week's "Great Christmas Light Fight" and really enjoyed the heavy weight category. When that was over, we got the boys to bed and wrapped a few presents while we finished our bottle of wine for Advent. Then we watched one episode of "Schitt's Creek" before I headed to bed for the night, leaving Adrian downstairs and still working. It was a great first day of break!

Tuesday (12/22) Today looked a lot like yesterday and we loved it! We slept in a little today, although Adrian and I both needed to get up and moving today. He headed to work another long day, hopefully his last one for the year. I got up and ready and headed out to get my eyebrows done and then bring the van in for a quick service. Thankfully it was related to what they did about a month ago and didn't take long or cost us anything, yay! When I got home, I started working around the house while the boys played video games. We took a break in the afternoon and AJ and I made cookies while the other boys worked on some things they need to finish this break. The cookies came out delicious, possibly my favorite batch on this season!!

The rest of the day passed quickly and I was very productive. I made tacos for everyone for dinner and after we ate, we went outside to look for the Christmas star. Daniel and I believe we saw it, or at least something that looked similar to it. It stinks that it's been so cloudy this week and we couldn't really see it from here. After a little more free time for everyone, we got ready for our evening together. We put out all of the goodies we've made and enjoyed them while watching the new movie "Jingle Jangle." It was super cute, we all really enjoyed it! After we put the boys to bed, Adrian and I headed to the basement to organize our stuff done there a bit and then finished our bottle of wine while finishing "Schitt's Creek." What a great series finale for a great series! We really enjoyed the whole series, so glad we decided to watch it!

Wednesday (12/23) We slept in a bit today and then had another slow start to our day, I'm loving this break! Adrian once again got up early and took care of Rocky and then dropped her off at daycare for the day before heading to work. When I finally got up and moving, I hung out with the boys and got a bunch of work around the house all day. We took a break in the middle of the day and finished a few pieces of homework and Scout requirements before enjoying the nice weather and playing in the yard for a bit. I took advantage of Adrian being upstairs all day and wrapped most of his presents this afternoon.

The day passed quickly and soon I was leaving to pick up Rocky and a small order at Meijer to grab a few essentials for the weekend. Then I came home and had dinner before heading out to the church to work for an hour. It was nice to see so many people there, big rehearsal for Christmas Eve. I was also surprised with two fun gifts at the church, one from my boss and one from my secret sister. I felt very loved receiving both of them!! When my shift was over, Adrian, the boys and Rocky picked me up and we headed to Creekside to walk around in the lights for a bit. We enjoyed using the new glasses our elf left us to have the lights all look like different things. It was a beautiful night and we walked around for about an hour before heading home.

When we got home, the boys decided they didn't want to do a movie or Christmas special tonight so they headed upstairs to play for a bit while Adrian and I opened our bottle of "Festivus" wine for our Advent calendar. After a bit, we called the boys down and watched the Seinfeld with Festivus and our favorite Big Bang Theory Christmas episode with them. Then we got them down to bed and worked on our wrapping for a bit. We finished the night with an episode of "Young Sheldon" before we headed to bed. I think we're going to have a very late night tomorrow!!

Thursday (12/24) Merry Christmas Eve! We all slept in a little today since Adrian doesn't have to work at all for the next 4 days! We had a relaxing morning of coffee and bagels that were delivered to our doorstep early this morning. Then we started to get ready for the celebrations. We got ready and bundled up to head up to the school to see Santa parade by in a firetruck. We decided to walk up so that we could take Rocky with us on a walk before leaving her in her crate while we headed out. When we got up to the school, there was a huge flock of geese and she decided to chase after them, escaping from Adrian and taking off running across the lawn. It was shocking to us that she took off but her animal instinct must have kicked in. Thankfully a neighbor in the school parking lot was able to coax her over and grab her leash so we got her back. That was a lot of excitement for a walk!

After we calmed down from that, we enjoyed the short parade of police, firefighters, snow plow drivers and a few other township workers. Santa was hard to see in the firetruck, but it was freezing and starting to snow so I don't blame him for hanging inside. When that was over, we walked back home and loaded into the car to head to Carl's for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It has been a few months since we saw them so the kids had a blast hanging out while the adults caught up over snacks and wine. We enjoyed a delicious dinner of fish and our homemade pierogies, which came out pretty good for our first try. We need to tweak our filling so we have less potato and more cheese flavor.

After dinner, the kids opened their presents and were all excited about their gifts. Then we had dessert and the kids played for a bit longer before we headed out for home. It had been snowing most of the afternoon and we had a bit of a rough drive home, but Adrian did great navigating the snow, ice and other drivers on the roads. When we finally got home, the boys had some free time while Adrian and I straightened up and prepped for tonight. We sprinkled our reindeer food on the snow, left out milk and cookies for Santa and got the boys to bed finally. Then we pulled up all of our unwrapped gifts and got to work. There was more than we thought and we ended up staying up until 2:30 in the morning finishing everything up! This may have been the latest we've ever been up prepping for Christmas, but it's also harder now because the kids go to bed so much later. Soon after we finished wrapping and putting everything under the tree, we headed to bed exhausted and ready for tomorrow!

Friday (12/25) Merry Christmas!! We are very thankful that the boys slept in until almost 9am this morning and we got some sleep after a very late night last night. They were all super excited to see all of the presents under the tree. Adrian took Rocky for a quick walk in the snow while the boys separated all of our gifts into piles. We took our time opening our gifts and everyone was happy with most of their gifts (the clothes were boring, but necessary!) The boys were VERY surprised to find a new XBox under the tree for them, especially AJ and Daniel who know how hard they are to find right now. I'm glad Adrian was able to figure out how to get one for them!

After we finished opening gifts, the boys headed upstairs to set up the XBox and Adrian and I tried to make some sense of the living room. We had a fairly lazy rest of our day that included a few naps, some football, lots of food and board games. We did an afternoon Zoom with my family which was a bit crazy but still fun. It was good to see everyone and felt like Christmas with everyone talking over each other. Adrian and I played two of our new games, Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels at Skullport expansion and Curious Cargo, and Adrian won both. We let the boys stay up until midnight, pretty much playing on their new Xbox the whole time. We all fell into bed shortly after midnight happy but exhausted after a fantastic Christmas!

Saturday (12/26) We slept in today since we had absolutely nothing on our agenda! We had a relaxing morning with coffee and bagels. Then the boys started playing video games and Adrian and I started playing board games. Our day was pretty much those two things plus walking with Rocky, watching football and eating great food. We played two games together as a family, Marvel Villainous which didn't go very well but we'll play again and Betrayal at Mystery Mansion, which we won and had a great time playing! Adrian and I also played Everdell twice and Barenpark, and I won all three games. We ordered Little Caesar's for dinner since the boys had been asking for pizza for the past few days. It was a glorious and relaxing day and exactly what we all needed. Looking forward to a repeat next weekend!!

Sunday (12/27) We slept in again today since we once again had nothing on our agenda, at least not this morning. We had a relaxing morning and then started doing a few things around the house to get it back into decent shape, especially focusing on the kitchen and the boys' video game loft. We also did a ton of laundry since we've been ignoring that for the past few days too. The day passed quickly as we worked and watched football games, including both the Jets and the Cowboys winning again this weekend. Around dinner time, I got ready and headed out to meet a few friends at the Mexican restaurant up the street to have some dinner and margaritas. It was a great few hours filled with lots of laughs and good conversation! While I was there, the boys had 2 friends over to play Dungeons and Dragons and use all of their new accessories for that. They had a great time playing together! When I got home, Adrian and I were pretty tired so we had some wine and watched some TV including checking out the new show "Big Sky" which we both really liked. It has been a great, long weekend and I feel rested and ready for another short week and long weekend of fun.