Merry Christmas

 Christmas Eve Eve: These 3 helped me make cookies!  They did most of the work, start to finish. Here are pictures of them peeling the kisses wrappers!

 Christmas Eve: In the morning, we opened gifts from out of town family (Phillips, Nana and Papa, and Uncle Warren/Auntie Haley).  Then, as we did last year, we had lunch at our neighbors'. Finally, Grandma and Grandpa joined us for church, dinner (Chinese take out!), and presents!

 

He loves his magical Marauder's Map mug!

She said "I'm just going to shake this a little bit..."

Sibling gift exchange!

Special friends!

Obligatory picture before church for Mom!

 

 

 After church, it's tradition for the kids to change into their new jammies!

She got a lot of great gifts.  This is by far her fave!

 Ready for Christmas morning! Our gift-giving tradition with the kids is that they each receive 3 gifts from us (to represent the 3 gifts that Jesus received from the wise men)....and then smaller gifts in their stockings.  This year, I "fudged" it a bit and each kiddo got 1 gift that was actually a few gifts wrapped together (all along the same theme). But for all intents and purposes, they each have 3 separate gifts under the tree.  I buy 4 different wrapping papers, and they each have a small piece of "their"wrapping paper in their stocking, which is how they know which presents are theirs.

Merry Christmas! 

At breakfast this year, we each opened a Christmas "cracker" that Nana and Papa sent to us (British Christmas tradition!). We also traditionally have Monkey Bread and Daddy reads the Christmas story.

 

 Stockings!

Present time!

 

 We hosted Christmas dinner...

Love this...Norah and Charlotte are having a "tea party" with Cubby!

And today was spent at home all day, in our PJs, playing with new stuff and relaxing (I managed to read an entire book!)...

Super 6!

Yesterday was Shane's 6th Birthday!  I am not going to lie....a birthday this close to Christmas is tough....mainly for me!  But Shane is such a chill kid, and his tastes are pretty simple.

Unfortunately, Kris had to be in the city early yesterday morning, so the traditional breakfast with Dad didn't happen.  He offered to take him to breakfast today instead, but Shane declined!

So after opening presents yesterday, I took the kiddos out for donuts (Shane picked Bosa) and then we went to Target to spend the gift card that Grandma gave him.  Shane then decided that he just wanted to go home to play with new toys.

Later in the afternoon, we picked up his buddy and I took the kids to Epic Air and then Kris joined us all at McD's for dinner.  

We let him stay up late to work on new Legos sets, and he was as happy as could be.

 It was a relatively simple day, but our newly-minted 6 year old seemed to feel special and celebrated!  

Here are a few pictures....I didn't even get out the big camera, but managed to snap a few on my phone! 

 

 

Phone Photo Dump 61

 Some random catch-up! Not in order!

My post office helper!

Silly faces!

Snuggles on cold days are the best!

Free rides at the grocery store!

Author Visit AND Free Books! Aaron Reynolds is awesome!

Book Fair Theme!

Awesome movie with a great friend!

Mommy Preschool!

A little S.T.E.M. activity. ;)

Tired boys.

Love her.

Solar system project!

Norah was a trooper...she played in this corner for MANY hours while I was on Book Fair duty.

The kid can read.  SO proud!

New library books!

And....she's FOUR!

 Our little Norah girl is 4!  She is just so fun and sweet and I can't imagine our family without her.  She has been counting down the "sleeps" until her birthday this year, and we celebrated over a couple of days.

On Sunday, some friends braved the snowstorm to come celebrate with us!

 As is tradition, the birthday girl went out to breakfast with Daddy (who also celebrated his birthday yesterday!).  This time, Mommy went along as well.

4!

First December Weekend

 Our first December weekend has been a fun one!  On Friday night, we went with some friends to a local "escape room" (and we escaped!!).  Yesterday, we spent the day at the Museum of Science & Industry.  I had never been at Christmas time, and it was so fun to see all of the beautiful trees and decorations!  And today, we got our first snow of the season.  And it is a big one...still coming down!