Christmas Break

Luke's contribution to "candy making"

Things are busy over here! I feel like I say that a lot and that most people probably think "things are busy for everyone, you aren't special" but alas...things are busy over here.

With it being the last Christmas before Kate arrives, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to accomplish/experience with my boys. It is also the last extended period of time without school in session before she comes. So, we spent the week leading up to Christmas in a flurry of:

• Visiting Gingerbread lane and checking out all the amazing gingerbread houses. I say "houses" in the loosest possible sense because we saw Panthers stadium, Japanese ninja training thingies, snowman repair shops, whole villages, Santa's summer cottage at the beach, Angry Birds platforms, and so many other amazing things. We had a great time meeting up with friends and oohing and aahing over all the details. Our favorite details were the dog that not only peed on a snowman, leaving a big yellow spot, but also ran off with one of his stick arms. (Snowman had on a very grumpy face - can you blame him?) Another favorite was Santa at his beach bungalow, hanging out in the hot tub with a cooler. And my favorite was the gingerbread ninja with his star-weapon thingies.

• Visiting Santa of course! We love to go see Santa at Great Wolf Lodge. The boys were so good and put in their requests very politely. Santa kept saying "that is all? just one thing?"

• Having long playdates with friends
• Baking, candy making, pretzel dipping, gift wrapping, cooking, chopping, decorating, gift making....

• Playing board games - Luke is ridiculously good at both Yahtzee and chess, much to Nicholas's dismay. I lose at everything.

• Visiting with family. We saw a lot of family this holiday season and it was really nice. Some of our grandparents are getting older and aren't in the best health. This year we made sure to visit with as many relatives as possible and I'm so glad we did.
• Trips to the Discovery Place - we have so much fun there and haven't been in a while. It was really nice, even if half of Charlotte had the same idea. :-)
• We even worked in a "pajama day" where the boys were allowed to stay in their jammies all day and do anything they wanted, as long as they were kind to each other. It was such a nice way to spend the day!

It is hard for me to believe that school starts back up in just a few days. The time goes so quickly! I wish we could bottle these days and just hold on to them forever.