Christmas 2013

We are back and settled from another Christmas of traveling and celebrating.  We had a great trip and it was so good to see all of our families again and celebrate with them.   We were lucky this year as we had all of our siblings at home for Christmas and it was so good to hang out with them and catch up.

We kicked off our Christmas a few days prior to the 25th when Santa made an early visit to our house.  The night before the kids set out cookies and milk and a note for Santa and carrots and reindeer food sprinkled outside.  They were so excited they could barely sleep!  And when they woke up in the morning and raced downstairs they were so excited and happy and we had so much fun opening up gifts.  The big gift for Tate and Adria was a desk for their room.

Leaving cookies and milk for Santa

After gifts we played around a little and got ready and packed up and headed out for Iowa.  The kids do great in the car and don't complain at all.  It makes the trip a lot easier when they do well!  Of course, they got a couple of new movies to occupy their time on the way up.  And Troy's favorite, a Team Umizoomi video.  He doesn't watch much TV- but he loves Umizoomi's!

This is how intent he is when watching "Team Umizoomi's"

We celebrated Christmas Eve by going to our church in Cedar Falls and then on to the candlelight service at my parent's church.  So out of three pictures, do you think we could have gotten a "normal" one?  Nope.....

Christmas morning we went to Joe's parent's house and celebrated with his whole family and their kids.  It was a great time and we love when everyone is there together.  We always have a laugh opening up gifts and it is always a huge event!  We hung out at their house for most of the day and spent time catching up.

Christmas evening we headed over to my parents house to celebrate.  My sister and her family arrived late in the afternoon and we opened up gifts right away because the kids couldn't wait!  This year my mom, sister and I decided to each make a gift for each other (along with a store bought gift).  It was actually a good idea and kind of fun, even though I grumbled about it the whole time :)  My mom made us some homemade bath salts and my sister made a gorgeous burlap wreath.  I made a wreath also for my mom and sister. 

On Friday night we met my mom's side of the family at the casino/hotel in Waterloo to spend the night.  It was a good time and nice to get together with everyone.  It was a hard and different Christmas this year without my grandma, so we all wanted to get together at a place she liked and spend time together.  We all went swimming and had pizza and snacks.  Then the adults kind of traded on and off in the room with the kids and the casino.

All the girls!

Saturday we celebrated another Christmas with my other grandma.  It is always good to see everyone on that side of the family, too.

Throughout the week, the kids went sledding a couple of times and played out in the snow when it wasn't too cold.  Troy loved sledding and always had a huge grin on his face when he was going down the hill.  The kids say they miss snow- what?!  We also got to catch up with some friends and my mom and sister and I got in some shopping, of course.

We headed back to Georgia on Monday and got here early Tuesday morning.  We spent an exciting New Year's Eve putting things away and folding laundry.  I am surprised Joe and I even made it to midnight!