Complete with:
Little girls smiling proudly post holiday-choir-concert.
A movie/sleep-by-the-Christmas-tree night.
White elephant gift exchange with the “grown ups” at my parents’ house (always good for some laughs – the sweat pants made to look like jeans were a big hit).
Singing Christmas songs with Mike’s family.
Opening birthday gifts -- including my personal favorite: coupons from my kids (20 minutes of brushing my hair? Cleaning the kitchen? Yes please!)
Annual Christmas Eve pictures with my sisters. (Alas, one sister is missing. Fortunately my parents bought tickets for a mom/sisters’ trip to go visit her in TX this February! Texas? I’ve never been. Can you believe that?)
And, among the other miscellany, a Christmas day Nerf gun war – compliments of cousin Devin (who came, carting bags of weapons, like some sort of apocalyptic Santa). Mike set up some targets originally, but it still ended in all out battle. The safest way to keep too many kids from crying seemed clear to me: everyone attack Devin. In the end Abe commented that this was a great Christmas . . . but that it wouldn’t have been even half as great without that Nerf gun battle. Now that’s Christmas spirit!
That super happy face I am making as I look into one of my gift bags? I got Magna Tiles! They are really a kids’ thing. I desperately wanted to get them for one of the kids for Christmas, but a decent sized set is pretty expensive and we’d already purchased a lot of gifts by that point, so we didn’t get them. Instead . . . Mike surprised me by getting them for me for my birthday a few days after Christmas. (Which has turned out pretty great since now all the kids can use them – but I can give turns, and curtail fighting, and allow someone to go and sneakily use them all to themselves in my room every once in awhile – which they love.) They have built non-stop magnetic creations ever since . . . except for when I take them away because, you know, they’re mine.
5 comments:
What a magna tiles? Awesome that Devin and Blaire were there. Did they spend the night? I love Mike's beard. Jason asked if he's undercover. I laughed. But he was serious. So is he? Can't wait for you to make your first trip to Texas! What shall we do?!
Love the nerf war, haha. We had a nerf war one Christmas with my husband's family...until the oldest uncle started hoarding all the darts. Not quite so fun after that.
Shan, look for magna tiles on Amazon. Jesse has a primary teacher who sometimes would bring them to primary and he adored them, but they are expensive -- especially to get a good 100 piece sort of set. It seems like they would tire of them, but my kids have been making castles for toys and arenas for lego battles, etc. Kind of fun. I think they will stay fun since I will only pull them out now and then to keep them novel in the future.
Blaire stayed with us for a few days. Devin came Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas morning (he even came by 7:00 am as we informed him he must :)).
Mike is not undercover, but he has felt totally liberated growing this beard all devil-may-care. It started with scout camp when he couldn't shave all week. Then he shaved. And missed his beard. And grew it back. Still . . . he keeps saying he's almost ready to shave it again. I'll kind of miss it!
I don't care what we do in TX. Just excited to be with my sisters ande mom even if we just take a walk and go to dinner.
It looks like to me like you guys had a very merry Christmas indeed!
Ohhh!!! Those photos are all full of happiness, love and light! You have such a beautiful treasure!:)
They have touched my heart!
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