Christmas 2015

We had a lovely, wonderful, magical Christmas.  Granny was here to spend the week with us and we kept her very busy. We spent a night in Williamsburg, VA visiting Busch Gardens and celebrating the holidays and Nash's birthday at Great Wolf Lodge. It was fun for all of us except Scott who lost his phone on the scariest roller coaster ever, The VERBOLTEN!

 Christmas Eve was spent with our good friends The Johnson's. We ate,  reenacted the Nativity, ate, Granny bought the kids a pinata, and we ate.

Christmas day was quiet.  We were all tired from the previous few day's festivities.  We actually, had Mac & Cheese for Christmas dinner. Most of our day was spent being entertained by Scott as he attempted to get Atley's new drone out of a tree. The kids spent the day playing with their new toys and a trip to the movie theater to finally see the new STAR WARS movie. 

To ease the tinge of sadness that always arrives the day after Christmas, we drove to Delaware to watch one of our favorites, Jimmer Fredette play basketball. We even got to meet up with him and former BYU pitcher Kolton Mahoney after the game.

 Harley's favorite part of the day was getting her face-painted and the battle balls.

Here is wishing everyone a wonderful New Year!

Christmas Break

I am doing my very best not to get all down in the dumps now that the kids are back in school and Christmas Break is over.  It is helping that school is cancelled for tomorrow because of EXTREME COLD.  I thought I had better post a few of the things we did during break before they become totally irrelevant.  Although the Christmas crafts are definitely past their prime. 

Atley had his very first piano recital. He played Good King Wenceslas and it was perfect. Not a single mistake.  We were really proud of him for all of his hard work and practice.

Harley and her preschool friends made Christmas ornaments.

We built our Gingerbread houses.  For future reference, IKEA sells the most adorable Gingerbread houses for $3.  They don't include icing but they really are perfect and might I add, quite tasty.

We enjoyed the snow.  Although this is the outfit Nash came up with when I told him to get his snow clothes on.  I'll admit it, I'm a little nervous about his future.

 

We used up our left over 4th of July Fireworks on New Year's Eve and we were all in bed way before 10PM.

The cat was never so happy as she was when this mischievous boy climbed onto the school bus this morning. I think she definitely needed a break.

 

NYC Christmas 2013

We spent several days in New York City before Christmas again this year.  Scott's parent's and my mom were there and we actually had a very relaxing time.  Well, as relaxing as New York at Christmas can be when there are 10 million people around you trying to get their Christmas shopping done.  Here are a few of the highlights.

We spent the first night walking from our apartment to Times Square.  We especially enjoyed the Helmsley Building and the Empire State building. Both were totally decked out with red and green lights. At Times Square the kids were on a mission to get to Toys R Us, ride the Ferris Wheel and spend their money as quickly as possible.  Harley was ecstatic when she got the My Little Pony Cart.  The boys settled for a Mega Bloks Taxi. Boy, were they relieved.

 

 We saw the fabulous Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. I loved how the spectacular show ended with a live nativity with real camels and sheep. It was beautiful. Of course, Nash wouldn't admit that he enjoyed it. He is way too macho for that.

 

 One morning I caught the kids sitting in the window of their bedroom playing I-Spy while they looked over the Manhattan skyline.  They love the city so very much.

 The weather was remarkable for New York in December.  One evening we took the Staten Island Ferry just to look back on the skyline.  It was gorgeous.

 After tons of walking my mom, mother-in-law and I were complaining about our sore feet. The kids decided to make us a spa.  They massaged our tired feet, wrapped them in hot towels, covered them in lotion and then painted our toe-nails. Isn't it lovely?

No trip is complete without risking your life or at the very least the chance of incarceration in China Town and Little Italy.  At one point on my search for the perfect Tory Burch handbag, as Atley and I were being led by a particularly shady character into a dark dungeon complete with one dingy swinging light bulb and a dirty cot in one corner, well beyond the possibility that anyone could hear our screams for help, I thought to myself, "Self, maybe this isn't worth it!"  But, then I realized dying for a new purse will always be worth it. So, we proceeded and succeeded in our quest. However, perhaps next time I will risk only my own life and not the life of my son.  He doesn't have as great a love for fashion as myself. And yes, I am thankful for that.

 

 We strolled down Fifth Avenue enjoying the lights, stopping at the Plaza Hotel in hopes of seeing Eloise. I insisted we buy chestnuts from a street vendor.  That was a truly disgusting experience.  With the exception of Nash we all found them utterly inedible.  Go figure! My pickiest eater is a fan of Chestnuts and Vietnamese food. Finally, we took a moonlit carriage ride through Central Park. 

One of my favorite things about visiting New York at Christmas is seeing all of the window displays. Here are a few of my favorites from Macy's, Tiffany's & Saks 5th Avenue.

 

Before heading home we visited Macy's Santaland.  We only had to wait about an hour and half but as we were leaving, the line to see the big guy was more than four hours long.  We also saw the most adorable puppet show at Macy's, depicting the true story of Virginia O'Hanlon.  You might have seen the Christmas special, "Yes, Virginia."

 

Christmas 2013

Sorry if it sounds a bit cliche' but I felt absolutely, positively overcome with gratitude this Christmas. I felt so blessed to be with family and friends, to watch my healthy and vibrant children tear open their Christmas presents and get up before the sun to see what Santa brought for them.  I felt so fortunate to have my mom here with us and to be able to spend all of Christmas day in my pajamas watching the boys and Scott build Lego's while I tried to figure out how the stupid Rainbow Loom worked.  I felt so lucky to be able to spend Christmas Eve with our dear friends the Johnson family singing Karaoke and eating way past the point of fullness. I felt so grateful to be able to cuddle up on the couch with my babies and read Christmas stories and to look over at my mom asleep on the couch completely unaware that the cat was using her as a bed. I felt so blessed that the cat survived a week with granny without mysteriously disappearing. 

 

Into the Woods on a Snowy Morning

We had two snow days and a delayed start this week and it was fabulous.  Part of that time we didn't have power so we had to search in the ice and snow for things we could burn to keep warm. Atley felt pretty manly throughout the whole experience.  One morning we went into the woods.  It was so quiet and peaceful. You would never guess that we were just minutes away from the most powerful city in the world.

  
 

Atley made the cutest little snowman. Harley named him Frozen. It was hard to say goodbye when it was time to walk back home. 

We had power long enough to make cookies.  Nash is kind of like the friend of the Little Red Hen.  He is never too keen on helping but he sure enjoys the finished product.

Eventually we ran out of things to burn but this didn't dampen the kid's desire to roast something.  One of our favorite campfire treats are roasted Starbursts.  So, they settled in around one little candle and roasted to their hearts content.

Of course we managed to squeeze in a craft or two including these pretty little snow globes made from mason jars and bottle-brush trees.

I think my favorite thing about the whole snowy experience was when we put back on our pajamas and crawled into my bed around noon. I read to them for almost two hours and they were perfectly content.  We didn't have any commitments. There was no place to rush off to or anything that absolutely had to be finished. There was no TV or Computer to distract us or video games to fight about. Those are rare days indeed and I think we all relished in the simplicity of the fleeting moment. Soon the power came back on and I had e-mails and phone calls that needed to be answered. Atley's teacher even felt the need to give him homework to do while he was snow bound.  After all, his text books are accessible online, he might as well be working.  I was slightly frustrated with that mentality but he got his work done and trudged off to school this morning with his snow-work snugly zipped in his binder.

Scott and I got a very rare few hours away from the kids last night to attend his work Christmas party.  Scott reserved a suite to watch the Washington Capitols play. I think everyone had a great time and I know Scott was relieved when it was over. It was a fantastic game that went into overtime and eventually into a shoot-out.  Our best player Alex Ovechkin even broke a few records. Since I have only been to 4 games in my entire life it was easy for me to call it the best hockey game ever.  We even got to eat Shake Shack for dinner-a little piece of burger heaven right there!

Christmas Day 2012

It is over and now I am ready for summer. No need to stay cold and gray.  Christmas is over let's just move on. No need for the kids to go back to school in a few days. Oh, how I wish.  Instead we have at least 3 probably 4 months of yucky weather and homework tears. Okay, sorry I am being  a Debbie Downer.  Christmas was very quiet this year. Our Christmas Dinner with friends had to be canceled because we were all so sick. We did manage to meet to swap food so that we each at least had a complete meal.  We stayed in our pajamas all day and worked on LEGO sets and a 3D puzzle Atley received, skyped with my family, watched It's a Wonderful Life and tried to rest.  Thank goodness Harley, who almost always manages to be the only healthy one at our house, won't remember how lame we were. The kids-wait let me rephrase that- Atley woke up at 5:45 and then woke up everyone else.  Santa brought the boys Legos and books. Harley got a balance bike and a bouncy puppy from Santa. Other gifts included a hot wheels track, Baby Alive who ate and pooped all afternoon, dress up shoes, video games, playdough, a Doodle Bear and of course every kids favorite clothes.