Monday, January 20, 2014

Christmas 2013

Christmas was a whirlwind this year.  It just seemed to fly by!  Which is kinda weird because normally at Christmas we are way busier but since we moved and we don't have as many friends, there weren't as many parties and commitments like their usually are.  I'm kinda glad though.  It seemed more relaxed.  I missed a few of the traditions though like the church children's program and the choir cantata.  This year we traveled for the first time ever at Christmas.  It was kinda weird to wake up Christmas morning and not be at your own house...but then again, we were at my mom's which is my childhood home, so it felt kinda comforting to me.  We were only able to get away for 5 days because my husband was the new man at his company this year, which meant last dibs for vacation time.  It all worked out fine though.  Originally we were going to have to drive home on Christmas Day, but the week before his boss changed it and we were able to change the dates around so that we could come home the day after.

We had a bunch of stuff crammed into our 5 days at 'home'.  It's starting to get confusing calling Ohio home, because now Florida feels like home.  Anyway, we saw friends and family and I was even able to have a girl's night out.  It was really nice to see everyone and made me miss them so much!  But in a way, it was like I had never left and no time had passed at all.  I hope we are able to continue fitting back in so well and that it never gets awkward, because I intend to come back and visit a lot.

No Christmas post is complete without the usually overkill of photos, so I'm just gonna share and tell some more as I do.  Here goes...

 We started our trip at the in-laws.  The cousins love to be silly together!  I love my girl's face on the top left...I have no idea what gift she had just opened but she must have found it disturbing or something. :)  My boy got the one present that he was dying for and I was so glad he got it early so that way he could finally stop talking about it.

He may have been slightly spoiled this year...

My cutie pie nieces!

The next day my mom hosted a Christmas party for our family so we could get a chance to see everyone.  The kids had so much fun.  We did a white elephant gift exchange which is always a hit.  That singing lobster has been passed around for 4 years now I think!  I'm just really glad we didn't get it!

Wow...that's a lot of kids.  My kids have even more cousins who weren't there!

These are the cousins from my mom's side of the family.  This picture just makes me laugh.  It isn't a good family photo unless at least one kid is crying. ;)

These are my kids with my nieces and nephew.  All of my mom's grandkids (minus one that was born like a week after I took this!).

Next up...Christmas Eve.  My girl wore this dress that was my mom's when she was a little girl!  Isn't it gorgeous!?  She was so excited to wear it and loved that it was old-fashioned.  I think it's pretty timeless. It fit her perfectly too.  I also wore this when I was around her age.  I wish I had a picture.  Someday we'll dig one up, I'm sure.

My boy.  Doing his model face and his fake smile and then cracking himself up...pretty typical.

A new family picture.   I need to start up my 4 people 12 times again because this is one of maybe two or three photos of us together that I took all year.

Seeing this pic just reminded me that I had a collage of all my kids' Christmases so far and I need to add this to it.

More nieces!  I love these two cuties.  I now have 5 nieces and still just 1 favorite nephew. ;)

Opening gifts.  My sister was on bed rest and had her baby just a few days after this!  I am so sad that I haven't gotten to meet her yet, but Skype really helps.

My girl is the perfect height for walking her baby cousin around.  They were so cute together.

 Best friends.  I love these two together.

She is such a cutie pie!  I love pictures with Christmas lights in the background.

Warming their little butts.  Too cute. :)

Christmas morning.  Both kids were so excited about that giant penguin.  We now have the whole collection.  My boy loves those guys.  My girl got a skimboard and a Kindle.   My boy got Legos and a Furby that he was clearly less than thrilled about.  I took a bunch of videos instead of photos, so I really didn't get that many of them opening gifts.

Well, thanks for reading if you made it all the way through this!  Now that I've got the Christmas blog off my list, I'll get back to more of our Florida adventures next time.  

1 comment:

  1. awesome as usual...thanks for sharing some wonderful memories it was wonderful having you home
    love, mom

    ReplyDelete

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