christmas break 2015

So it's January 23rd and I'm just writing about Christmas. Oops!

The kids had 16 days off for Christmas Break. It was a little bit long, but warm so that helped a lot. We got to spend some great time with the Kozels. It had been a really busy season for both of us and we just hadn't gotten to spend much time together. So we spent an afternoon making sugar cookies . . 

And then on the eve of Christmas Eve we went to see the house with the light show near Mylan Park and the house with the Christmas light trail in Westover. We left our house around 8:30 pm in pj's and it was about 60 degrees. We had a nice private viewing of the house with the dancing lights and just the 6 of us walking through the lights in Westover. It was AWESOME!

Christmas Eve morning is traditionally when our family opens presents because we go to New Martinsville after the Christmas Eve services. We each opened one gift and then watched the Walt Disney World promo video to get excited and remember that's why Christmas was so small. Ben made us a wonderful brunch and . . .

We did a little light cleaning so we could come home to a clean house. (I know you know how this is very, very, very important.)

As a side note: all week of Christmas looked like this.

My flowers that didn't bloom all summer were blooming and my weeds were in full fledged takeover of the garden. 

So Christmas is always more fun with little ones. Especially 2 two year olds who really don't mind if their older cousins open their presents for them.

And we got to meet Roxie! Oh that girl!

We had the traditional my family comes to Christmas brunch at Ben's family's. That's one of my favorite traditions that we've done forever.

Sophie got a singing Elsa doll and played it incessantly.
It is totally payback for the past 6 months of The Nae Nae.

 My brother made an amazing shrimp dinner.

 My family had a "garage sale Christmas." Everyone brought 5 things to the yard sale from their house and then we shopped from each others stuff. It was really fun!

Cousins

There's a cousin picture floating out there somewhere from the other side of the family but I don't have it.

 Sophie & Roxie

Guy time at the table doing puzzles.

It was so warm. Why not go for a walk?

The day after Christmas we had pizza lessons with Aunt Sara. She's opening her very own pizza place in Erie this Spring so she's a professional at that. The kids made pizza from scratch and learned a lot. Aunt Sara doesn't mess around.

We can't forget Reed! All these babies . . . make me thankful we're past that stage of life now! 

 

 Ben's favorite gift was a box of baseball cards Andy got him for Christmas. They spent an hour one evening opening all the packs and reliving their childhood. It was so great!

Sophie showing off some of her fashion nails she got.

Sophie got creative with some of our dress up masks and jackets.

Ted spent some time at Dick's spending a gift card. He didn't get the helmet - just tried them all on for fun.

Ben and Ted hit up a WVU basketball game. (And the WVU football field for a grand tour when they stopped to get tickets from Casey. That was a definite Christmas break highlight.)

We spent New Years with our friends the Bozics. We cooked dinner together and then I fell asleep on the couch at 10pm. I made a rousing recovery and we all made it to midnight. I'm am so not fun.

 We made Frozen cupcakes from a kit Sophie got for Christmas. 

They tasted worse than they looked.

 Sophie recently discovered YouTube kids. She watches all sorts of videos about kids creating things. She spent a large chunk of Christmas in her bathrobe making play-doh clothing for her princess dolls. The rest of us watched football until our eyes bled. This picture pretty much sums up most of our Christmas break.

We stayed in New Martinsville longer than we usually do. It was nice to relax, rest, play cards, visit our families, and just be without so much hanging over us.

Our goal over Christmas Break was to watch all six Star Wars movies and then go see the 7th in the theater. We made it through 4, 5, 6 and three-quarters of 1. Whew - it's quite a story. Just yesterday and today we finished 2 and 3. A lot of characters. Lots of background and story lines. And I can't even wrap my brain around the creativity.

So our Christmas break bled right into YL75 and then Disney. Then this week we had MLK, Jr day, 2 snow days, 1 2-hour delay and 1 2-hour early dismissal. I'm still working in Christmas break mentality.