Skip to main content

Christmas 2017

Merry Christmas! What a wonderful week this was...the days just flew by! Darn it, we have to go back to work in two days. At least we’ll be refreshed and ready to go.

We spent a very nice Christmas Eve at my parents home...We all enjoyed the traditional butterball soup, except G (and Grandma) who decided he didn’t even want to give it a try. His loss, which turned into an extra butterball for Ava...lucky girl! We ate so much food...all good, but boy, I was ready to sleep it off when we got back home. Instead, we opened the traditional ONE gift on Christmas Eve...Ava has caught on and knows that it’s always new pajamas, but G thought he was going to get something cool, and he wanted a redo. Haha!

And of course we left a cookie, fudge, carrot, and eggnog out for Santa and Rudolph. G was very adamant that the carrot was only for Rudolph, and not any other reindeer. He insisted that Rudolph isn’t very big or strong, which is why he needs the carrot more than any of the other reindeer. I’m not really sure where he got the idea that Rudolph is weak, but I do like that he wants to take care of him...

Hi Lucky! (Lucky knows it's just pjs in G's gift...)


Matching jammies for families - "Naughty is the new Nice!" (Except Scott...he got something else)



All gone!


We hit the hay, and then...it was Christmas! The kids were so patient, as we only opened the stockings before breakfast. G was so excited to get his toy train from Santa! I was excited to see that the Booze Fairy (that’s what the tag said!) left a few gifts for me in my stocking, too. Thanks Santa and the Booze Fairy!

After a lovely breakfast of quiche, we opened all of our gifts. It was pretty awesome to watch how excited the kids were to tear into things. It was a very generous year, and we are very grateful for all of the wonderful presents that were given to our family. Ava made the comment that she has too much stuff, and has no more room to put anything. I advised her that we’re going to go through all of the toys and will be doing some donations in the near future. She agreed, and started to clean stuff out on her own. WOW!

We received some wonderful food gifts for Christmas, which are a treat...peach/berry crisps, cinnamon rolls, egg benedict sets, etc. Items we will definitely use, but will not take up space in our house. Love it!



The train set is bigger than he is!


G was the lucky recipient of a game where it's all about doggie poo...it's actually easy and fun. Who knew?


And then it was back to normal, non-Christmas life...daycare for G, release days for Ava. While they were occupied during the day, I did a TON of stuff around the house...fun things, like cleaning the fridge, cleaning the cabinets, cleaning out the medicine cabinet, etc. It’s so nice to get that all tidied up. Scott ended up taking a few days off, too, so we grabbed some lunch together, and went to the jeweler to get his ring re-sized so he can finally wear it again (he smashed his finger a while ago, and the ring won’t fit over his knuckle.) So glad we are getting that taken care of!

Mommy and G - and puppy!


They both decided to take a nap in the booth after dinner out one night...Ava doesn't look thrilled, does she?


Thank you, Santa! My mom and I split this and it was yummy!


Scott also snuck in a fun afternoon/night out with friends, which is great. He doesn’t often have time to go out and have fun since he works so hard, so I’m glad he was able to do that.

Scott and my dad worked hard on our basement yesterday...we now have recessed lights installed in the main room! Plus, the shop room is ready to go, so I think I can start organizing next weekend. It’ll be fantastic to have a permanent home for all of our things that have just been lingering in our basement. I sense a massive purge coming on...hooray!

We’re heading out to celebrate New Years with our dear friends tonight...Ava has told me several times how excited she is to see Isabel and Evie. And G really loves their blue house, so we all win! Haha!

Be safe, and if you’re in MN, stay warm...it’s -12 below right now. Brrrrr!

Happy New Year! Bring on 2018!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Exploring Local Places

Last Sunday was the perfect day to explore an area that neither Arya nor I had been to before. We headed east to walk around the Vermillion Falls/River and Greenway area. The path was nicely paved, with lots of overhead shade from trees; there were so many families out on bikes and walking, and we had a nice view of the Vermillion River. Arya got some great pics, and I enjoyed spending time outdoors with my sweet girl. This weekend, G and I will be heading out to explore a creek area in a few towns just south of us. And I've already got an idea for another creek I want to walk by next month (it's a bit further away, and I'd rather put that aside until Arya is off at college) The tree leans to find the sun On the way home, we stopped at the DQ in another town (we have a love/hate relationship with the DQ in our town, so I wanted to avoid it.) The warm weather felt great, and we enjoyed some sweet treats while watching the world drive by. We're counting down the days unti...

What a Week

The weather has been unseasonably warm this fall, so we've been able to extend our outdoor projects just a bit.  This past week Scott's been working in the garden, cleaning everything out, and repairing the back wall of our garage.  Ava was such a good little helper, scooping up dirt, but still trying to keep her hands clean while doing it! I swear, a box is all she needs to make her happy. Princess Darla. Princess Darla has had enough.  I personally like how she and Ava have the same expressions in this picture. Apparently Spanky was bored - check out that yawn in the background! We went down to Grand Meadow this weekend, and as always, it was so fun to see Ava and Isabel play together.  They actually had several little conversations with each other - and they were so polite while doing so!  We even had them share a room last night...boy, that was a challenge.  I think they finally fell asleep around 10:00pm.  And of course, Ava wa...

Preparing for Vacation

We had a low key week, which is rare in this house. Oh sure, there were fun field trips at Summer Power, a visit to the splash pad on a hot day, and a few crazy, rain storms, but it was an easy week. Well, there was that one time when we were out for dinner with G (Ava was with Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug for an overnight stay and a trip to the Dakota County Fair - fun!) and G decided to hide behind my chair and puke all over me and the floor (at the restaurant.) Ugh. The good news is that he was just too full of chocolate milk...no illness! A quiet week, once in a while, is an okay thing! We're starting to prep for our vacation to the Wisconsin Dells...we don't take too many family vacations, so this is a big event for us. (Funny, I took a break from writing this post as Scott just asked me about planning a trip to Disney...we were debating the differences between going to California vs. Florida...pros and cons to each!) Yesterday, I showed G a video from one of the wat...