The Saturday 7: Christmas Edition

1. Another Christmas come and gone. It was wonderful as usual. After finishing my blog last week, Justin helped me put all the presents under the tree. We don't do Santa, but I like there to be a big reveal on Christmas morning. Well our "Christmas morning" is actually Christmas Eve morning . . .

Levi got really excited about pretty much everything he opened.

Since my overnight cinnamon rolls failed, I got up early on Christmas Eve morning to make these "Easy One Hour Cinnamon Rolls." The failed almost as miserably. I'm thinking my yeast was too old. We ate them anyway.

Stella got a couple presents too!

We actually only opened a few presents in the morning because we had to get to church. We're heathens, and usually skip church if it interferes with our Christmas plans, but Justin had to teach Sunday School this year, so put a pause on present-opening and went.

But we jumped right back into it when we got home.

The aftermath

The big hits this year were all the remote controlled vehicles for Levi: truck, drone, airplane - plus a hoverboard. Lena was most excited about her Osmo Kit and gymnastics bar. And Lucy pretty much just wanted clothes, perfume, make-up stuff, and books.

2. It was nice spending Christmas Eve afternoon at home, opening all the new stuff, napping, and preparing for the next day. That night kicked off Christmas with my family with the Christmas Eve service at church:

Then it was off to Niki's house for appetizers and hang-out time. This year, Niki made each couple tell how they met, how they started dating, and where they went on their first date. It was fun to hear everyone's stories - and interesting to see how things have changed. With my parents and us old siblings, we had to physically talk to the person - or at least call them on a landline phone - to ask them out. For the nephews (and my cradle robbing brother), it was done largely through text. #kidsthesedays

My kids and I spent the night at Niki's, per tradition. And per tradition, Levi didn't fall asleep until almost midnight. 🤦 He was up at 5:00 asking if it was morning, but I convinced him to go back to sleep until 8:00 at least.

3. On Christmas morning, everyone arrived around 8:30, the kids found their stockings and explored their loot, then we made the kids assemble for the yearly Christmas tree pic. I love how this group gets bigger every year!

No criers this year!! Although, I didn't get a very good one of everyone looking at me.

Then Dad did a retelling of the Christmas story with his handy dandy flannel board (which I apparently didn't get a picture of.) But Niki got this cute video of Levi. Each family had to read a small portion of the story. Levi wanted to read ours, and did better than I expected him to!

We spent the rest of the day opening presents . . .

Looking for the pickle in the tree (Nash was the big winner this year!) . . .

Playing games . . .

Holding sweet babies . . .

And even doing sidewalk chalk on this unseasonably warm Christmas Day!

We stuffed our faces with delicious food all day, I won three games of six-person Euchre, and we finally tried out Lucy's Escape Room game. She got it from Justin's parents a couple weeks ago, but it's best played with a large group, so she saved it. My mom, Niki, Libby, Brandy, Lucy, Lena, and I took on the challenge . . . and conquered with 12 minutes to spare! It was a lot of fun!

As always, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude on Christmas - for my little family that I love so much, for my big family that brings me such joy, for Niki who is an incredibly gracious and generous hostess, for my parents and siblings and nephews who spoil our kids, for my husband who hangs out with my family for an entire day without complaining, and for Jesus who left heaven to come rescue us . . . and then blessed me with grace upon grace by putting me in this family. I cherish the moments we have together and the way we get along and enjoy each other.

4. The rest of the week has been the typical limbo land of "what day is it?" and "what are we supposed to do with all this trash that won't fit in our trashcan?" Justin and I both had Tuesday off, so it was nice to lay around, play with new toys, and start cleaning up the Christmas messes.

Trying out the new drone (it's flying in front of the blue curtain by the window.)

This girl has some serious strength and skillz

5. One of the gifts I bought myself this year is one of those electric scrubber tools. (I'm obviously nearing forty when this is something I get excited about.) Our bathtub is disgusting and my traditional method of all-purpose Lysol and paper towel wasn't cutting it. I also bought a tub of "pink stuff" to really up my game. Yesterday, I finally decided to break them in. The first problem, though, is that the drain was seriously clogged by all the hair it has to contend with from Lucy, Lena, and me. Historically, I've always made Justin clean clogged drains, but he doesn't even use this shower, and I was feeling all "I am woman - hear me roar," so I determined to do it myself. Never have I regretted a decision so strongly. That is the nastiest thing I have ever done. Because it's not just hair! There was so much black slimy, squishy gunk that smelled like death. Levi came in to see what I was doing at one point, and literally fled the bathroom gagging. *shudder* Anyway, once I sufficiently scrubbed my hands after removing pounds of hair and sludge, I started in on the tub. Two hours later and it was like new! Haha. I took breaks. And I let the pink stuff set a bunch of times. It didn't get all the hard water stains out, but it did a remarkable job, and I was thankful for the electric spinny brush that saved me from exerting too much elbow grease.

6. Today, I finally took all the Christmas stuff down. It's nice to have the living room back in order. We have one more party tomorrow, and then it's officially on to the new year. Stay tuned for my year-in-review blog post.

One more thing . . . I finished the book Digital Detox about detoxing kids from screen time, and we're going to start on Wednesday. For two weeks, we're going cold turkey with digital devices. I'm going to let them listen to music they've downloaded or can get on Alexa, but I'm changing the wi-fi password, so they can't sneak any other Internet-related activities. The book was really eye opening and convicting (it was one of only seven 5-star reads for the year), and I just feel like it's something we need to do. So we're going to attempt it for two weeks, and then add screens back in sparingly. 😬😬😬 Pray for me.

7. A few more pictures, and a couple memes: