Christmas

The actual day of Christmas was really laid back too.  :)  I woke up and made breakfast for everyone on just a few hours of sleep.  I was impressed that I was as functional as I was!  My kids slept in late which was awesome because they had gone to bed late... so the Young's opened up their gifts and stockings beforehand which was just fine.  My parents aren't really big into the whole show of it, which I'm glad.  Its just hard to coordinate with all the kids and making sure people aren't getting too annoying because they are so excited for presents!






















We then just played with the presents for awhile and then we finished up the gingerbread houses!  We had glued them together the night before to let them rest but my kids were really excited to decorate! It actually went really well.  I was considered that we were just going to make a big mess and Mom was going to get mad, but everybody was patient and I think they did a great job.  Even Holly's toughest kid sat down and enjoyed.  :)























I laid down for a nap and G kept everything together and going.  Of course.  :)  He is the man.  I feel bad sometimes because I know that no matter who anyone else brings home they are never going to be better or even compare to how awesome he is.  Things continued to go well until Holly came back and picked her kids up and left.  Then, we were there just for a little bit longer to help clean up and then we headed home.  It was a good Christmas and it was really nice to be able to spend it with almost our entire family.  Miss you Jon, Megan and Daniel!

JVG

Christmas Eve

What are the holidays without a little drama with the family right?  Well, this one I kinda started but it had been bugging me for awhile now.  My sister had wanted to get details down for what to do at mom and dad's for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.  It had come out that she wasn't going to be spending Christmas Day at mom and Dads but the way she worded it made it sound like her whole family wasn't going to be there.  Turns out, nope, just she isn't going to be there.  WTF!?  On Christmas Day you're going to leave your kids somewhere while you go to your boyfriend's?  That's messed up. And the fact that the kids could've gone but it was just more convenient for them to not was even more irritating.  I get that she is dating and all that but HELLO!  Your number one priority ARE YOUR KIDS.  NOT TRYING TO FAWN OVER YOUR NEW BOYFRIEND.  I was pissed.  She, again, was taking advantage of mom and Dad and just pretending like she didn't know she was doing it.  So... we had it out a little.  More or less it was me asking hard questions she didn't want to hear and her crying and saying how difficult life has been.  I'm not doubting it at all.  I would never want to be where she is... but the fact remains that she needs to man up, take care of her kids, and when parenting gets tough (because it will when they're teenagers) you can't just bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not happening and that it will go away.  It, in fact, will only get worse.  Then, she was all like, 'I will be there all morning, just gone in the afternoon.'  NOPE.  She woke up, went back to her place to get ready, had breakfast and then left.  She probably saw her kids for 2 hours that day.




















Christmas Eve was actually really low key once we got to Mom and Dad's.  We just did puzzles and hung out.  The cousins were all on devices so they weren't as obnoxious as they could've been.  There were so many treats and goodies it was amazing that I didn't get diabetes that day!  We all pitched in and did sandwich stuff and appetizery things all day so that Mom didn't have to cook.  Then, we sang some carols, played pin the nose on the reindeer and the kiddos went to bed.

The adults stayed up WAAAAAY late and played Tripoly, which is my favorite game ever.  But, we finally called it quits after I realized I had to be up in a few hours.  Overall, I think it was a really nice Christmas Eve and even though I had some tough things to say to Holly I think she took them well.

JVG

Christmas with Oma and Mike

We had Christmas with Oma and Mike the week before actual Christmas.  The beginning of the visit was a bit rough (you know, the whole picking a time and date, us rearranging our schedule to accommodate, then her not showing up and then not telling us when she will actually be there... that type of thing...) but it turned into a good visit.  It's so hard to move past a bad beginning and not let it ruin the rest of the visit, but i think everybody did well and the kiddos loved their presents!

She didn't go overboard with them which was nice, and they got some pretty awesome stuff.  Dude got this remote control dino that you can 'teach' things too, Lucy got an amazing Melissa and Doug doll house and Norah got this fun pop-up house that fits perfectly in her room.  The kiddos had a great time playing with their stuff and getting things set up.  We got them this candy thing that dude picked out from World market and some Nutcracker glasses with beer from around the world.  She collects nutcrackers so I thought that this would fit nicely.  :)

























It was overall a good day and I was thankful that they made it safely and that everyone had a good time.  :)

JVG

Polar Express

The library was doing a movie night and I was really hoping that the kids could go because I thought that it would be a lot of fun but they were HORRIBLE during the day.  I can't even express how frustrated I was with them so I wasn't going to let them go... but G thought that maybe it would be a good idea to let them go and see how it turned out.  Well, they were angels and loved it!  They had never seen the movie before and they had hot chocolate and candy canes at the lib so that was amazing for them.  They got to stay up late and hang out in their PJ's.  I think it kinda helped them get over their funk which I was certainly glad for!




JVG

Christmas Party

Last weekend my friend Nancy had a couple's Christmas party at her place. She had been working hard all year to finish their basement and it looks great!  There were three other couples there besides Nancy and us and it was a lot of fun.  These were all couples that they had met through hockey but I think we blended well  :)  We all brought something yummy scrumptious to snack on and then we played pictionary on teams.  We all brought $$ and then we donated it to a family at the library which I thought was a nice touch.  We had a lot of fun being silly and being kid free!  I thought I was doing really well with the whole adult beverage thing, but then all of the sudden... it hit me.  Oof.  We had a lot of fun still and I was glad that we went home when we did.  :)  That is probably all the holiday cheer I am going to need for quite some time, but was really happy and glad to be able to get out with G and have some fun.




JVG

Gingerbread Houses

I have never done gingerbread houses with the family before so I thought that this year might be a fun time to start.  I wasn't all suzie homemaker and make my own gingerbread for them, I just got a kit from Jo-Ann fabrics.  Well, I think that the kids had a lot of fun!  The frosting part of it wasn't that sticky so they had a harder bit of time trying to get the decorations to stick, but they found a way.  The kid had instructions on how to make the gingerbread houses look just like the ones on the box, it was a lot of work and the kids didn't seem like they wanted to sit around and wait for it.  They just wanted to make their own designs!  I think that we will probably try it again next year and I may just make my own frosting for it :)

Lucy's creation

Dude's

JVG

Christmas cookie decorating with the in-laws

We had out visit with Gaetan's side of the family for Christmas.  It had been awhile since we had seen them and I was interested to see how the visit was going to go!  It started out a bit rocky even just for scheduling but once we settled on a date things went great!  Zoe was in town for the holiday as well, so she was able to see the kids and since the visit was relatively short and we had a lot of things to do there wasn't time for any nit picky drama.  The weather wasn't great so I knew that it was going to take them a bit longer to get here (they drive really slow when there isn't anything wrong with the weather...) but at least they let us know that they were running behind (that's just polite).  When they got here we did presents right away, because, who can keep a 2 and a 4 year old at bay when you see PRESENTS!!!  After they opened presents and played with them for a little bit I gave them their presents.  We got Ingrid this canvas artwork that said LOVE in the middle and on top it was All You Need is and on the bottom was Is All You Need (Great Beatles song right?!) It also had a double meaning because that was the song that she walked down to for at her wedding with Mike so I thought that it was perfect.  She seemed to really enjoy it.  Then I knitted Mike a tie with the U of M logo on it.. it turned out pretty good I think, and it's a little silly but he was gracious enough to wear it here.












Ingrid had requested that we stay in and hang out, which is totally what we like to do anyway!  I told her I could make snacks if she wanted to bring decorations for cookies and she was THRILLED with the idea of doing cookies together.  The kids had an absolute blast decorating cookies and eating about a pound of frosting too.  :)  Overall, the visit went great.  I didn't feel steam rolled after they left and nobody was being snarky or pouting.  It was fantastic!






















JVG