End Of The Year Recap

Yes, I'm behind AGAIN, but now I'm back. I left off right before Christmas, and while I could go into a lot of details about winter break and Christmas, I'm not going to. It seems like it was so long ago. Since we're into the new year now I'm going to give you the very shortened version. Otherwise I'll never get back up to date. It seems like I've been busy non-stop with this and that since the kids were on Christmas break. So here we go:

The first week of winter break for the kids, I made it a point that the kids and I did something special together each day. I wanted to make some memories and share in some fun activities with them. We weren't going anywhere over break so I had to bring the fun to them! Day one, we made some more pretzel buttons (this was after I had already made three batches to give to teachers) and another batch of party mix (again after I had made three batches the previous week). Day two, we made our first gingerbread house together. The kids had a blast, and we'll definitely be doing it again next year! Day three, we made a Rice Krispie treat Christmas tree! Later that night we made peanut butter pretzel bites. I decided to try these this year instead of my Peanut Butter Pattie cookies I usually make. A recipe I found on Pinterest. They were o.k., but not as good as the cookies. Day four, we made some more Sour Cream Cut-out cookies like the kids had made with Katie a few weeks before. I thought we'd surprise my mom, sister, and Kaite at Christmas with some. Unfortunately though something went wrong and they didn't taste quite the same. Oh well. The kids still had fun making them. Day five, (Friday) Greg was off work with the university being closed Friday before and Monday after Christmas. He and the kids went to see his cousins that were in town, while I pampered myself with a manicure. We had family game night Friday night. Emmaline kicked our butts in Candyland three times! It was a nice way to end our week before we started our four Christmases!

Christmas Eve we celebrated Christmas #1 with Greg's mom during the day. Then she took us all to dinner. The past few years we've gone to Bravo!, but this year we decided to change it up and we went to Mitchell's Fish Market. Crab cakes and filet need I say more? Delish! Christmas morning we had Christmas #2. We've made it a point to have that time just the four of us Christmas morning so the kids can open their Santa stuff. The kids really didn't need anymore toys this year so we kept it low key with less stuff. I told them I'd rather save money on toys and use it towards a vacation this year. It would be nice some year to not have to travel and stay in our pj's on Christmas, but that's not how it works so after our Christmas we were off to my Dad's for Christmas #3. Thankfully the weather was decent this year so no travel problems on the road. My dad and step-mom made Christmas dinner and then we did presents with them. Later that afternoon we headed to my sister's and my mom came down to her house and we celebrated Christmas #4 with her. It was a busy couple days with family, nice dinners, and nice presents. Thanks to all our family for everything!

We came back home on Monday and Greg had the week between Christmas and New Year's off. It was nice to have him home and all of us together not having to run back and forth to school and activities! We spent a couple days doing returns/exchanges from Christmas. Then the rest of the week was spent re-doing Evan's room for his birthday. Stayed tuned... more about that and my little guy turning seven in the next post!