Christmas 2013

This Christmas season has felt extremely un-holiday like to me.  I think it has to do with lots of factors: our first year without celebrating with extended family, all Christmas shopping was done via Amazon and not seeing stores decked out for Christmas, Brian's tough ICU schedule, not seeing Christmas lights on houses and the minimal amount of Christmas decorations we brought with us. I even didn't have Christmas music on as much as I usually do!  Thankfully Brian did have Christmas Day off, so we were able to have a good day as a family opening gifts and playing together.

The kids made off like bandits with some really great toys from very generous relatives.  The big assembly project that happened during the morning was the art easel.  This has been a huge hit with both kids!  On a related note, if anyone needs to know how to get non-washable dry-erase marker out of clothes, I had luck with Murphy's Oil soap on three of Sarah's shirts.  We are working on being better about putting our aprons on before starting to color!

Sarah has enjoyed carrying things around in her new purse.  Its just the right size - big enough to carry quite a few things but still small enough to not be too heavy.  Though she hasn't quite figured out how to keep it on her shoulder without having her arm in the air...

Nathan playing with a new set of blocks.  As you can tell from his expression, he didn't want me to take a picture of him or his tower.

After dinner I was chatting with the kids and asked Nathan if he got any great presents for Christmas - just to see what he would say.  He replied "Mommy, I got a very exciting present today - the snowman!" and then later, "Mommy, I always wanted a snowman to have in my bed!".  Sarah is also in love with her new bear, which is almost as big as she is!

We ended the day with the whole family playing with our Geomag magnetic building set, but found out quickly that the 120 piece set does not have enough pieces for four to play at once!  I have to admit that I long ago lost interest in building block towers with the kids, though they beg me to build with them on an almost-daily basis.  So Mommy may be buying (herself) another set in the near future so we can all enjoy building together again!

Though I still don't have a picture of the kids playing on them, Brian and I bought the kids each a super-cool Maxi Kick scooter (orange for Nathan and pink for Sarah, you can see them in the picture of Sarah holding her purse).  Nathan especially rides his all the time and was so sweet with words of thanks throughout the day for his present.  Mid-morning he glided up to me and said, "Mommy, I love my scooter.  Thank you!" and then later he told me "Mommy, this boy loves his scooter!"

Finally, the food: we had our typical breakfast of cinnamon rolls and sausage balls - a beautiful combination of Brian and my traditional childhood Christmas breakfasts.  Then for dinner Brian made steaks to go with mashed potatoes and green beans.  And to finish the meal, dipped chocolates/chocolate balls were enjoyed by all.