Christmas recap ( a little late, I know...)

Wow, I guess I have been on a break from the blog for a while. I really feel like I am just now coming up for air after Christmas. We were so busy this year. I felt like we hardly had time to sit and enjoy the season. Business, just the thing everyone tries to avoid. We had Samuel's school play on the 4th, a Christmas party for Josh's co-workers in our home on the 8th (I cooked for 50), had neighbors over for dinner on the 9th, Santa at Josh's work on the 14th, Polar Express party for the neighbor kids at our house on the 15th (which I forgot to post pictures of), Samuel's school Christmas party on the 19th (which I was one of the 3 moms in charge of it and had to prepare a craft for 22 kids), the photo book my sister and I made for Mom and Dad this year which took hours of work and had to be done by the 18th, and of course all the regular shopping and other regular activities. We left for my parents house in OH on Christmas Day and came back on the 30th. We had to squeeze making Christmas cookies in on Christmas Eve so Santa wouldn't go hungry and then also got caught in another Christmas Eve dilemma. Samuel was off from school from the 20th until yesterday, the 7th, so he had a lot of time off. He decided to make Christmas gifts for everyone in the family and worked very hard on it for the few days leading up to Christmas. When he finished, which was the night before Christmas Eve, he said to Josh and I, "so, what are you guys going to make for me and Kiki?" So guess what we did all Christmas Eve?! We worked on our own craft projects for the kids to give to them as Christmas gifts. I made Samuel a Lightning McQueen bag to hold his cars from the Cars movie and Nora Kate a fairy bag with a ruffle (my first ruffle!). Josh made Samuel a marvel heroes tic tac toe board with a bag to carry it in, and he made Nora Kate a necklace. I should definitely post pictures of those, because it was really a defining memory of this year's festivities. It was funny because we were all squared away, in the best shape we had ever been on Christmas Eve, and then ended up being up til 2am doing our craft projects! It was neat though because we were all most excited to give the gifts we had made for each other. Here are some pictures of Christmas this year. This first picture if of our mantel in the kitchen. I really just posted it because I want to remember what I did for next year. Hopefully next year we'll have some paint on the walls! Nora Kate and Pop at Pop and Gigi's house in OH.

Samuel with Mom watching a movie.

Tim and Rhonda (my sister) getting ready to open gifts.

The Grandkids.... Samuel, Elizabeth, Rachel, and Nora Kate.

Me and Rhonda

Mom and Dad with the Grandkids. Dad was reading the Christmas story from the Bible, a Christmas tradition with our family for as long as I can remember. This was on the 26th.

Mom and Dad with the photo book we made for them.

Samuel Christmas morning.

Nora Kate Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve, we let them sleep together in our guest bedroom so that they would be able to get up together (Nora Kate is still in a crib). They stayed up for a while fighting and laughing, but finally went to sleep and didn't get up until about 6:30, which we thought was pretty good!

The cookies!

Making the cookies!

This the "pop-up nativity" that Samuel worked so hard on making for Nora Kate. He was so proud of it and so excited to give it to her. She really liked it of course.

The kids with Santa at Josh's work.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas. I will be trying to catch up over the next few days!