We tried to cram as much fun into the end of 2013 as we could, with family holiday celebrations in Illinois and trips to our favorite places around Milwaukee. My dad set up his old Lionel train set and the kids (and Jay and I) had fun building a lego and lincoln log village around it. We also played battleship, uno, chess, guesstures, and yuker for the first time in a lonnnnggggg time, and watched a few new movies as well as an old favorite....Mary Poppins. Of course the Feast of the Seven Fishes for xmas eve is always a personal favorite of my own, but this year we discovered that Hannah and Leah also love a good crab leg or two. And all of the kids enjoyed the visit from Santa that night (as did the adults!). We woke up Christmas morning at our house, and the kids were pretty excited with what they saw under the tree (though it was a bit of a delayed reaction, and Hannah just stood there and quietly said, "is that mine? is this for me? along with quite a few "just what i wished for" after opening a few gifts. Leah on the other hand upon seeing the Weaving Loom underneath the wrapping paper of a present said "this is NOT what I dreamed of!". Classic Leah!) The girls enjoyed being princesses for the day and I think Leah did about five outfit changes, whereas Joseph got to work on legos, Wii games, and other fun toys he was excited to try out. And I think he was just as excited for new pajamas, as he's stayed in them as much as possible over the break and also enjoyed staying up late (until 8:30) to read with his new flashlight and darth vader head lamp. (we'll see how the conversation goes on Jan 2 when we have to start waking up early and getting dressed right away in the morning). We swung by Discovery World one day, spent another morning at the Country Springs Water Park (ok, so maybe not the best idea to go on the coldest day of the year when it's 0 outside, but the water at least was warm even though the air was cool inside and the kids had a fantastic time going down the slides and playing in the basketball pool), and swung by Yo Mama for some tasty treats (again, on another freezing day but the kids didn't care!). And in keeping with the cold theme, I took the girls to see Frozen while Jay and Joseph played Lego Batman and Skylanders Giants at home. It was a pretty good movie, the girls of course argued over who was which princess, and since it was so crowded I decided to wait at the end until everyone left before we exited the theater and called in to order some dinner to pick up on the way home. And as I was ordering I realized that Hannah was crawling around on the floor eating all of the leftover popcorn she could get her hands on (and no, none of it was ours, as we didn't have any popcorn). Not my proudest mom moment, but not my worst either. And aside from the short bursts of chaos or crying, it's been really fun to have this time together as a family relaxing, playing, celebrating and doing the things we love most. Besides, even the chaos turns into funny memories later. Well, at least most of it does!
Posts
