christmas

I'm still pretending Christmas isn't over yet.
My parents are still here, we've all been home, Ryan's only worked two short mornings, we've still been watching lots of movies, letting the kids have too many snacks and playing too many Wii games.

It's always a little hard for me to get back to real life after Christmas. I'm especially wondering how it'll be this year since I really have no idea what a "normal" real life here in our new home/city/state is yet.

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I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
Ours was very calm and cozy.
Peaceful and simple and so, so good.
We didn't get dressed for what feels like days.
We opened presents, played games, watched movies, went for walks, and lived off of leftovers, christmas donuts and stocking goodies (which included apples and oranges, so it wasn't ALL bad) for most of the long weekend.
Lots of family time.

A few highlights in pictures:

~Making cookies on Christmas Eve with Gramma and Grampa.
(hmm... for some reason I can't find my pictures of this?!)

~Christmas morning.














The kids were stoked about their stocking substance this year... they had lots of great little goodies, and I was beginning to think we would just be saving all our presents for next year because they were just content with the treasures in there. Who knew Super Mario Brothers trading cards and wooden tic tac toe games would steal the show?

Our house is pretty sound travel resistant and I can't hear when the kids get up and go downstairs in the mornings so the plan was for Ryan and I to get up early, before the kids, and camp out (and fall back asleep) on the big couch in the family room in front of the tree so we could see the kids' first reaction to the Christmas Morning Magic.
That was my hands down favorite part of the whole holiday... Ryan and I snuggled on the couch under our favorite comforter, watching our kids unpack in excitement their stockings. It was still quiet, it was still dark, the full tree was blinking and twinkling and everyone was so sleepy smiley.
Perfect.

~Santa brought new bikes.


Bittersweet to me. These are real legitimate Big Kid Bikes, people. Like huge. Like they won't need new bikes for most of the rest of their childhood. How did these kids get so big?!?














And of course we get new bikes on the one in 20 years it snows here on Christmas morning.
It maaaay warm up enough today to bundle up and actually try out these gifts outside.

Which brings us to one of my favorite highlights of the weekend...
~A White Christmas...







It snowed all day. It didn't amount to all that much, but it sure made it feel Christmassy. LOVE.


~Our donut tradition.








Too. Many. Donuts. This. Year.







~Ryan in a pink princess Snuggie.
















~Gumball machines, cowgirl boots, hexbugs and guitars.


















~Games, games and more games.
~Food, food and more food.
~Having family here, Skyping with other family and hearing cousins on the phone.

It was just an all around perfectly pleasant Christmas.