Christmas 2017

As usual I worked all day doing Christmas Eve deliveries, but since it was Sunday, I didn't have to deal with rush hour traffic and was able to finish up just before 5pm right after it had started snowing. It was absolutely gorgeous, but my last delivery was in an apartment complex with lots of hills, and I was doing a lot of slipping trying to figure out where this man's building was. I breathed a huge sigh of relief once I'd found it and gotten out of the complex, which was fortunately just around the corner from my house. Being able to walk into a nice warm house to enjoy a lovely Christmas Eve with the kids felt heavenly. My boss even let me bring a few chocolate covered pineapple reindeer home for the kids, which they promptly devoured.

Apparently they hadn't had enough sweets, though, so daddy helped them make cookies for Santa before preparing a delicious steak and potatoes dinner. 

We found a Santa Tracker On Demand along with some upbeat Christmas music. The kids had fun singing and dancing around to it while watching Santa's progress.

 We put them to bed early and started getting the house ready for the big day.

The next morning the kids gave us our first gift by sleeping in unexpectedly until 8!

The snow had continued through the night, so we had a lovely white Christmas!

Here's a video of the kids first coming downstairs on Christmas morning. After putting the kids to bed the night before, Oscar ate Santa's cookies and I took a big bite out of one, intentionally leaving it that way for Tyler to see. That was apparently the wrong choice since it made him think Santa hadn't eaten his cookies. I had to explain that Santa did eat them but that he got full and didn't finish the last one. 

Fry continued his tradition of sitting on all things holiday. This time he sat amongst everything rather than right on top of a big box per usual. Cute Christmas kitty!

Allison was delighted to get some ponies. About a month earlier we'd noticed she was always holding ponies when we'd pick her up from the child watch at the YMCA, and she'd throw pretty big fits when we'd make her leave them there.

She really liked lining them up in a row, though she struggled and threw fits when she couldn't get the small ones to stand up properly.

She also insisted on eating with and feeding the ponies during breakfast. They were still her favorite toys the rest of the week, though the novelty began to gradually wear off.

The stockings were hung from the pull up bar hooks with care

Ty liked emptying them and finding a Reindeer nose. It was so fun to have such excited kids for Christmas this year. Their enthusiasm just makes it that much more festive.

Tyler liked helping daddy open his stocking. I always put a lot of effort into his stocking with whatever I can find made of strong ginger and dark chocolate mint.

New toys!

The kids used to have a Kareoke robot toy I'd found at Goodwill for $4. Unfortunately the "on" button got stuck sometime in November and I ended up taking the batteries out and throwing the toy away since there was no way to turn it off. Tyler enjoys watching the garbage trucks come on Monday morning, but he got really sad when he saw the robot get dumped out with all the other trash. He yelled "why are they taking our robot?" so I explained that it had gotten broken but that he could ask Santa for a new one. I never expected him to remember that, but he did. Whenever he saw Santa or was asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said "a robot." They no longer make that kareoke kind, and it would be over $100 to get one of the remaining models on Amazon, so I got him this robot that walks across the ground and shoots out little foam discs. It's a bit noisy and doesn't turn off on its own, but it was inexpensive and they really enjoy playing with it.

After our present opening we took the kids out into the back yard to enjoy the snow.

Oscar and Tyler built a snowman while Allison climbed into her old walker. It's amazing she still fits in it and finds it enjoyable, though she's too tall to walk it around now.

He gathered up a lot of dirt and grass, but they successfully made a snowman.

We'd used up all of the backyard snow, so we took the kids around to the front of the house to play for a little longer. Tyler made a small snowman out of snowballs as Allison ran around the neighborhood. When she came back around, she picked up the snowman and handed it to us saying "snowman." It was so adorable! It was like she was saying "look daddy, I found one!"

Shortly after that she got cold and was done playing outside. She gets very sweet and affectionate when this happens and just wants hugs. Such a sweet girl!

I got her up for bed while Tyler enjoyed some of his new gifts including this caterpillow bed from Granny Hunt. You stick up to 5 pillows to make it into a bed. I figured it would be great to have at hotels or sleepovers where extra pillows are availabe but an extra bed might not be.

We finally got to see Star Wars 3D for Christmas! It was the first time we'd seen a recently released movie in over 3 years.

And the next morning all the kids wanted to do was play with their new toys.

Granny and Grandpa Hunt had also given Tyler some puzzles and a homemade maze book, which he finished off in less than a month. After he'd finish each maze we'd tear the page out and he'd make his own maze on the back. He'd also come up with a scenario before solving it. These ones on the fridge were "help the boy get his golf ball in the hole," "help the girl find her purple polkadotted ball," and "help the boy in his costume find his spooky ball that is black."