Christmas festivities 2013

Hello there dear friends. I know this is a tad late but with the holiday break, it was hard to find the time to get on the computer and make a blog post of our "fun". Anyways here's what we did to celebrate Christmas home and away from family...

On Christmas Eve the kids were begging us to allow them to open their presents. They were never this anxious before because on Christmas Eve we were always at my Uncle's house in California and they get to open presents there. Because this year was a bit different, they couldn't get their minds off of the presents underneath the tree. Finally we caved and allowed them to open one present, which were their new house robes. In years past, the kids always gets a new pair of pajamas before Christmas. This year we saw some cool robes and they were willing to trade their new jammies for some robes. Both kids were super excited about them and it made them relax a bit about the need to open anymore presents and everyone went to sleep. :)

The following morning, the kids got up earlier than usual and were super excited to finally open all of their presents. So with bed hair and still in our jammies, we all crowded the living room and handed out the presents. Everyone seemed to be happy with all of their presents, especially Mitch who I surprised with a new set of sunglasses. He wasn't "entirely" thrilled with the style but because I was smart enough to add a gift receipt with it, he was able to return the glasses and get a style that he'd rather prefer. 

Madelyn got some cool toys and an MP3 player. Yes, I have a child that's going to be walking around with headphones from here on out. She also got a robotic cat which purred and made sounds ALL-DAY-LONG! Good thing it's not the real thing and had an off switch button. Gotta love technology!

Marcus got the Skylander's swap force and Disney Infinity. We were able to score both games for a steal during the Black Friday shopping. He also got another character for Skylander and another WII game. He was pretty stoked with the money he got from Grandma and Grandpa as well. 

I know someone will ask so, I too got some gifts. I got a deep fryer so I can make homemade doughnuts and french fries. I also got some new shoes. You know it's time to rethink your shoe collection when you try on a pair of shoes with insoles built in it and would rather wear that than your stylishly cute flats that are just not comfortable anymore. Yes I'm getting old and I can't help but pick comfort over fashion. I also got some Christmas money which will be fun to take to the scrapbook store. *wink*

After everyone opened their presents (which didn't take that long) our front room was filled with torn up wrappers and containers, but all had that special "Christmas morning" smiles on their faces. 

For breakfast we had our "annual" breakfast casserole. I say annual because we only tend to make/eat it at Christmas morning. We also had cinnamon rolls and tangerine. 

The rest of the day was quiet uneventful. The kids enjoyed playing with their new toys. Mitch and I both did our phone call rounds making sure to greet our dear family members and then the family went for a walk. We also played our new board game, "Apples to Apples" that afternoon. It was so low key that at the end of the day it didn't feel quite like Christmas day. 

For dinner we heated up some leftover ham. Yes I served leftovers for Christmas and I'm quiet unashamed about that. I paired it up with some mashed potatoes, green beans and rolls. We drank some sparkling cider to make this meal "fancy".

Mitch had to work the rest of the week so we didn't do anymore celebrating till the following Saturday. I had made the suggestion that we try a local indoor pool in our town. This center was used to be owned by the city but was sold to the local YMCA. They were offering a family pack admission for $25 and we thought that was a reasonable price for all four of us. We packed some lunch and headed to the pool....

On this particular day that we came to swim, they had closed their wave pool because it had a high content of chlorine. That was  bummer but the kids still had loads of fun. And because we came at an off season day, it wasn't crowded at all, just the way we like it.

We brought our smaller camera so the above photos of the family sliding down weren't as crisp as if we would have taken it with the d7000. That's the camera enthusiast in me talking. I'm sure that no one cares if these photos were a bit blurry. It still captured some fun times for the fam.

This trip definitely got a thumbs up from all the family members

And here's me trying to do some "selfies". I have realized that I wasn't in a lot of pictures of our family in 2013. I'm trying to change that for 2014.

And one final image. We like to get the kids new "church" outfits as part of their Christmas gifts. We are not shy to say that we got both kids' ensembles at the "Arc" thrift store. In the past few years we have seen the savings when we go to our thrift stores for clothes and shoes than buying them new. I love how we were able to score a nice piece of suit jacket for Marcus for $7. Maddie's dress was 50% off so we got it for $6. I love how I can style my family for not a lot of money.

So there you have it. A look back at how we celebrated the holiday. It was definitely not like the other years but because we were all together....it was still very memorable.

Till next time,
Grace