Christmas 2018

We had a lovely Christmas this year. Lots of smiles and happy kids, good food and company. We were happy to have my parents join us for the day.

The annual reading of The Night Before Christmas.

Wesley wanted a gaming headset from Santa. He's very into Fortnite. 

She wanted a big warm blanket from Santa, she loves blankets!

Rudi is a happy camper as long as he's in my parents laps.

I tried my hand at making tamales (low fat, vegan) for the first time. They were delicious!

Decorating gingerbread houses, best part is eating them!

That girl could make slime every hour of every day if given the opportunity.

Family Pictures

When my sister was here over Thanksgiving we decided to try and get some family pictures taken all together. It was nothing professional, just a tripod and a park but I think they turned out pretty well.

Santa!

Seeing Santa at the public library has been a tradition since 2012. The kids have enjoyed it thoroughly and it puts us all in the Christmas spirit. This year Wesley said he's too old to do it anymore. I knew the day was coming and to be honest I'm surprised we made it this long. But Greta is nine years old and still wanted to go so we all went as a family to see Santa (Wesley said he'd go for the cookies and punch). It was a mad house this year! So many people attended. It was a 2.5 hour wait to get your picture taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus. We learned last year to walk in, get the little card (they call the picture on your card when it's your turn) and leave. We went and ate pie to pass the time last year, this year I had a gift card to Applebee's so we ate brownie sundaes there. It's a fun way to pass the time.

Wesley decided to be in the picture this year, but he wanted to sit next to Santa. Love these big kids of mine!

Ice Rink

Over Thanksgiving we were informed that we had an ice skating rink. Didn't even know this existed! It took our relatives from Minnesota to inform us of this. They are quite familiar with their ice rink and their boys skate and take lesson frequently. So we all drove downtown to try our hand at not falling on our rear ends. It was great fun, Wesley excelled at skating. He's always been quite good on roller skates so I assumed he'd pick it up quickly. Greta on the other hand was so frightened of falling that she sat it out. It took a lot of coaxing to finally get her out on the ice. She did one lap and called it a day. But, upon leaving she said she'd like to come back and try it again sometime when it wasn't so full of people.