December was jam-packed as usual. Yia Yia and Papa came down for a quick visit and brought Charis with them. We were able to exchange gifts and have breakfast with Santa at the kids' school. Unfortunately, Keira came down with the stomach bug that morning so the rest of the time was spent close to home.
Surprisingly, no one else caught the bug and the kids were able to enjoy all the festivities at school the last week before break. The kindergartners had an elf party. Asher and I came up for Ellie the Elf's show and a quick stop in Keira's classroom after.
The night before we left for Denver, our neighbors came over for our now traditional gingerbread house and cookie decorating. We fit a lot of activites in just that last week before Christmas!
This year we opted for the one day drive to Denver. We loaded the kids into the car at 3:15am and set off. They slept a little, but not as much as we had hoped. We made it to Amarillo around 8 as planned for our breakfast stop. As luck would have it, the Chick Fil-A was having a breakfast with Santa complete with pictures and crafts. A fun surprise!
We arrived at my parents house some time around 3pm local time. It was a long drive through dense fog in Texas and grouchy kids after that, but we made it. Ari and my sister set to work making some challah for French toast the next morning.
Even though we really didn't want to get back in the car, we ventured out to a robotic dinosaur exhibit that was on its last day. It was pretty well done. Lots of displays of dinosaurs making slight movements, a station to explore like a palentologist, a dinosaur bone dig area and lots of bounce houses to entertain the kids. They were exhausted to say the least!
Since it was the sixth night of Hanukkah, we decided it was time to exchange gifts. This gave the kids plenty of time to play with their goodies before we had to pack them up to get home.
The next morning it snowed less than a half an inch, but you would have thought it was a blizzard with all the excitement! Luckily my dad had purchased some sleds at the thrift shop so they put them to good use at a local hill.
That evening we hosted a Hanukkah party with our extended family. My mom decided it'd be fun to get shirts this year and I found these on Etsy. They were a hit!
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent relaxing around the house and going to see "Night at the Museum 3" at the theater. On Christmas morning our kids awoke to one present each (we've adopted the 3 gift plan - something they want, something they need and something to share. A couple of their gifts this year were too large to haul back and forth.)
Asher made sure to get in his annual nap on Grandpa while we all watched "A Christmas Story."
Late Christmas day it started to snow again. Neither snow storm were in the forecast before we left! By Friday morning there was 6 inches of snow on the ground. We had originally planned to head home that day, but the road reports didn't look good and the storm was headed the same way we were. We opted to stay one extra day which meant more snow time!
Ari was the first one out so he could measure the snowfall. We were not prepared clothing wise so I strapped grocery bags on each of their feet in hopes of them staying a little warmer and drier. Texas snow boots! It was pretty cold that day, so they didn't last too long.
We started for home the next day and decided to route through Wichita to stay on main highways just in case. We got to see Yia Yia and Papa three times in a month - a rarity for sure!
Eight days after we had left, we arrived back home. The kids were ecstatic with their remaining gifts. Their gift to share was a compound bow! Ari and Keira tested it out the next day (Asher isn't quite big enough for it yet).
After a day spent recovering and unpacking, we've hit the ground running on our latest home project - turning the dining room into a homework/craft room. The big parts are done - painting and new furniture purchased and assembled - but there's still all the little things to do - organizing and artwork. This project caused a chain reaction of reorganizing other areas of our house. I spent much of today taking care of that while Keenan painted trim. Pic's will come soon I hope!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that 2015 is a fabulous year for us all!
