Month: December 2016

My good friends from high school – Johnna, Jenny, and Amy came over today to visit and to let the kids play.

(You might ask why in this picture all of the kids are smiling – which never happens? Wade was standing behind the camera making the best faces!)

The kids were so excited to wake up today for their last Christmas. After a breakfast of Red’s donuts (a must have when at Gram’s house), we got down to the present opening. After Kaitlyn’s nap, the cousins arrived and we started presents all over again! (It is possible that we encouraged some iPad use in the middle of the day to give the adults a little quiet time.)

Just a few random pictures from the day.

Here you can see the before and after lengths for Kaitlyn’s hair. She has been begging for a haircut for months and got it for Christmas!

I was at my Mom’s house about 6 months ago (sometime over summer) and on my bedside table sat a picture I remember well from childhood. The frame has a picture of my older cousin, myself, and my sister all wearing Grandad’s (my Mother’s father) baby dress. On this particular visit the wheels started turning and I asked Mom if she had the dress. I knew Kaitlyn and Mackenzie could still fit in the dress, but I wasn’t sure about Harper. My Mom had no idea what had happened to the dress after my Grandmother died. She checked with my Aunt and my cousin. Nobody knew what had happened to the dress. Fast forward to September. My Mom found the dress in a random drawer and over Christmas break I took the pictures. Below are all three great-grandkids in Granddady’s childhood dress.

Today we did a little of everything. We played with new Christmas toys, visited the horses, took the kids to see Moana (first movie for Kaitlyn), played some more, and ended the night with a cousin sleepover!

We left town EARLY and then decided to stop for Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits about 10 miles down the road – Priorities! The drive was awesome. The boys played on their iPads and Kaitlyn loved her new headphones for the car. (She got a “princess” movie from Santa.)

Then we arrived at B’s house just in time for dinner, snowball fights, cousin-time, and presents.

What are the holidays for if not new things? Kaitlyn spent her first night in a big bed at B’s house.

Our Christmas celebrations in Chicago are winding down. Everybody (us included) leaves tomorrow. Today we hung out, played, and generally had a good time.

The kids were awake and ready for Santa at 7 am. Judy and Jerry arrived minutes after the kids made it down the stairs. We opened packaging, played with toys, and read books until it was time to get ready for church.

We all took nice long naps and then played some more before opening the stockings Judy brought. Definitely a successful Christmas!!

(In case you are wondering, Kaitlyn is sitting in front of the 3D printer the boys got for Christmas. They were nice enough to make me a frog for the first print. Then it was on to cars and Pokemon.)

We decided to switch things up this year and have most of our nominal Christmas Day activities on Christmas Eve. We started with the last basket present, then a big breakfast, and moved on to games and cookie making.

After an early dinner, we got to the presents! Before we knew it, it was time to put cookies out for Santa and get the kids in bed.

My favorite funny moment of the day – I got new dishtowels for Christmas (a lot of them) and asked Kaitlyn to go put them in the drawer. After everyone was in bed, this is what I found.

Kaitlyn loves the idea of Santa. She talks about him all the time. Before seeing him she agrees to sit in his lap. The minute she actually sees him she freaks out! I thought I had taken care of that today by promising fruit snacks, but that first glance still proved to be her undoing. I finally convinced her to stand by Teague and hold his hand. Teague would happily crawl into his lap, but that boy just loves hugs.

Teague had some friends from school over to decorate cookies this morning. (Of course it was 95% playing and 5% cookie decorating, but that was expected.) The kids had a lot of fun and the mess was minimal.

(And funny story of the day: Wade and I both woke up about 7 am as our power went out. We aren’t quite sure what happened but it evidently affected about 450 people and took about 5 hours to fix. Thankfully I had baked the cookies yesterday and the house was warm enough we just carried on with no power.)

Both Kaitlyn and Teague had Christmas programs at school for the parents today. Wade and I loved seeing the kids with their friends and they all did a great job!

Give this boy a platter of cheese and he’s in heaven!

Yesterday Kailtyn only wanted to drink from the “house” cup. (Thankfully I speak Kaitlyn and knew exactly what she wanted.) Thanks to Granny we have three of these mugs (one for each child) and Kailtyn used them all today. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Alex spent last night in Milwaukee with his besties. They were getting ready for Abram’s big 9th birthday party today! Teague and I headed up right after lunch. Sadly the football in the snow was out due to extreme cold temperatures, but there was fun chaos inside with pokemon trading and cake – always cake!

Our neighborhood had “Santa at the Beach” today. Our neighbor is in charge of all kid activities and set the entire thing up. She asked Wade to play Santa and he was a great sport. We let the boys in on the secret and drove Daddy to the fire station a little before the event. The firemen let the boys ride in the firetruck too and I hurried to the beach.

Kaitlyn wants nothing to do with Santa – even when it’s Wade dressed as Santa. She watched him get dressed but as soon as he had the beard on she wouldn’t go near him. I have a single picture of him holding her in the fire station and I think she just hadn’t realized what was going on yet.

You see that chocolate covered mouth?

Look what happened next.

We moved our tabletop Pac-Man game outside for the Halloween party. It was moved back inside and into the playroom. (This was supposed to be temporary but it’s still here.) The boys have decided it works nicely as a place to play and charge iPads. Teague has a reading program from school that he does a few days a week and he likes to sit beside my desk while he reads.