Winter holidays

Here it is...the third week in January?! I think I can say we have successfully survived the end of 2011.

We spent Christmas morning at home as a family. The kids were very excited the night before to have gotten video messages from Santa. Not to so excited to have them discover they were on the naughty list. But thanks to time and technology they were back on the nice list after playing nicely and cleaning their rooms in a record amount of time. This year Alexa read the traditional "T'was the Night Before Christmas" to the twins. They then put out a note and pictures, along with some whoopie pies and milk.

I have to say that this year was even more fun than last. With the twins now being 4 they understand so much more. And seeing their faces as the fact that "Santa" had arrived dawned on them was fun to watch. They tore into their stockings and seemed to actually take the time to enjoy what they found in them. Then it was onto gifts followed by a giant breakfast.

We woke up to snow Christmas morning. Our first decent storm this winter season. It made for tricky driving to my mom's for dinner. But thankfully we don't have as far to drive anymore! My panic attack quickly passed once we were safely inside the house. (and the roads don't have to be that bad to induce a panic attack - I am a wussy Maine driver.) We had a wonderful dinner with my mom, brother, sister-in-law and nephew.

Then it was back home again to snuggle into beds. And a long vacation week. Well...not really all that long for me because I had to work at the daycare and then the Superintendent's Office. So it was long for Chris who watched Alexa instead of making her go to daycare. By Thursday Jake had enough of daycare and refused to go. Can you really blame him? Of course I discovered when I got home that all they did was play Wii and DSi.

We spent New Year's Eve with our oldest friends and their kids. It had been since July since we were all able to get together and I had been sick with strep so I didn't really get to see much of them. Everyone had a fun time. The kids didn't get to stay up to watch the ball drop but we did let them have a little sparkling grape juice and blow horns before they went off to bed.

Our gift giving and celebrations were finalized last week after a wonderful Sunday at my sister-in-law and hopefully future brother-in-law's. It was hard dragging the kids out of there to go home! I'm not sure if it's because they didn't want to leave K & S...or because they didn't want to leave the dog behind...