Christmas Break

I always look forward to time at home with my family. Christmas break consisted of 13 school-free days – we were grateful to have Justin home 10 of those days, which was wonderful.

This morning (our first day back to school) came far too early when Katie woke up at 6:30am! Justin and I have this running joke that the kids always sleep in when he’s home – seriously, why did she choose today of all mornings? (I suppose it didn’t help that I was out with some gals in the ward last night until after 11pm, way past my early-pregnancy-bedtime)

Here are a few things we did (or didn’t do) over Christmas break:

The kids had a sleepover in Jason’s room one night. I was a bit concerned how crazy that would be, but the kids were fast asleep by 8:30pm.

The majority of the other nights the girls camped out on their floor often in make shift beanbags (large blankets filled with stuffed animals).

Staying in our pajamas 80% of the break. Last night we reminded the kids they would have school the next morning and Jason replied, “So I’ll have to get dressed?”

The repairs on our kitchen floors were finished on Christmas Eve-Eve after three weeks and several days without a dishwasher. The coloring is a little off though so I may have to arrange a little follow-up.

We experienced wind so strong on several nights that I had trouble sleeping and kept expecting our bedroom window to burst. We thought Auburn was windy, but that was nothing compared to what we get here.

A late night donut run for Justin and the girls – half price at Krispy Kreme after 9pm

Of course there was lots of playing with new toys

Abigail was Carly’s secret sibling this year and wanted to get Carly a sand art kit. I immediately said no – what mother wants to deal with sand in the house? But when Abigail couldn’t think of anything else I broke down and let her get it. Carly was nice enough to let Jason join in on the fun.

Abigail has given many a bracelet kit to friends and wanted one for herself. I think she chose the hardest bracelet to start with, but she’s enjoying the process.

Jason scored this year. Not only did he get tracks for his cars from Santa and Grandma, but his cousin Haden gave him a Geo-Track set that he didn’t want anymore. One of Jason’s preschool friends has Geo-Tracks and Jason is always excited when preschool is at their house so he can play with it.

Jason also received Cars 2 and Ice Age from Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher. So during the break we had an Ice Age marathon.

Jason and Katie crack up when they watch these movies so Justin set up the video camera when we were watching the third Ice Age so we could capture it on film.

As you can hear Katie is quite persistent when it comes to getting her Dad’s attention – she can be such a Daddy’s girl and she loved having him home so much these past few weeks.

We had a fun afternoon with friends eating pizza and playing games.

Spending all day on New Years Eve shopping – Justin had an urge to make a purchase and it was the last day to recognize any expenses in 2011. After 7 hours of shopping, with four children in tow, we came home with a rug for the entryway. It’s very traditional looking, which isn’t necessarily my style, but it was 80% off, then an additional 20% off so I think it may grow on me. Katie liked it immediately.

Bringing in 2012 with Justin, eastern time (the kids had long been tucked in bed). We had full intentions on hosting some sort of get together and even purchased bubbly for the occasion, but when it came down to it we decided to keep things low key.

With the New Year came a new and much better suited church time of 11am – I’m going to love getting to sleep in.

I went into our break with a long list of things I wanted to get done while Justin was around. As you can imagine little, if anything, got accomplished. Which blows my mind because we didn’t do much of anything at all, but we managed to enjoy it nevertheless.