Christmas 2015

Christmas 2015 is behind us and it was yet, another good one.  I embraced the fact that my kids are very little and we don’t need to do every obligatory activity we can to fill up each day in December.  And man oh man, was it nice to focus on just a few fun things.  We visited Santa and went to look at Christmas lights this month, along with Christmas Eve service and family gatherings.

A few days before Christmas, we took the boys to look at lights.  This was our first year to do this and Beckham really enjoyed it!

This was the back of one of the houses we visited.

And this was the front!

We tried something new this year and celebrated Christmas with my in-laws on Christmas Eve for lunch/afternoon!  It turned out great and we had a good, relaxing time!  It was really warm for this time of year, so the boys were able to play outside as well!  We love spending time over at the Snyders!

My in-laws live right by the church that we attend for Christmas Eve service (my parent’s church), so we headed to the service to meet my family.  Each year we all go to service together and then eat dinner at Cristina’s Mexican restaurant afterwards.  My younger sister, Cami, came in town so the whole fam was there!  There are 4 kids, each with a spouse or significant other, my parents, and 6 grand kids!

B did great during the service (kid friendly service) and was able to wear the donkey headpiece (his choice) 🙂 and go up on stage for the Christmas story.  Meanwhile, this little nugget kept BUSY on our row eating crackers and making faces at the people behind us!

We came home that night and wrapped a few more presents and assembled Maddox’s tool bench and Beckham’s scooter.  All is ready for the boys!

Out boys are LATE sleepers, but of course Beckham came running into our room at 7:30 ready for Christmas!  We got baby brother up and the fun began!

Seeing their faces is the greatest part.  We spent the rest of the morning eating cinnamon rolls, watching Elf, playing with toys, and figuring out how things worked.

We got ready and headed to our 2nd event for the day…Christmas at Ryan’s uncle’s house with all the extended family!  I have not one picture from there unfortunately!  I got busy talking and totally forgot!  We had a brisket lunch and we all talked outside while the kids played!  It was a great afternoon!

Next up, we headed to my parents for the final gathering!  Present opening can get CRAZY over there, so we decided to have the grand kids open their gifts first before dinner.  Then we had a yummy dinner of beef and pork tenderloin with a ton of sides!  Afterwards all the kids and spouses opened gifts!  And then finally my parents!  At one point there were 21 people over at the house!

Ryan and I came home, put the kids to bed, and watched Homeland!

Yesterday, I started de-cluttering their playroom to make room for new toys.  Feels good to clean the room!  I had a few questions on where I got certain items shown, so I’ll do a post on the making of this room (I actually had planned to and then let it slip by).

It’s nice to get back to some normality.  I am enjoying having some time off from the shop and really haven’t done any blogging…it’s been nice!  I do have tons of things on my to-do list though.  I’m working hard to de-clutter our entire house (I feel like there is just stuff everywhere…a lot of things do not have a home).  I’m also working on re-painting a small wall area under our bar in the kitchen.  And we might be having someone paint our kitchen cabinets (at the most, get new back splash and counter tops, but I think that will have to wait).  Lots of home stuff going on in my head.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post my Year in Review this week and my 2016/January goals next week!