Christmas 2012

I realized tonight that the holidays are coming to the end:(:( Chris goes back to work tomorrow and Max and Mya goes back to school on Thursday. I love having Chris home for so long and I'm  thankful that John Deere gives their employees this break. I always get so sad when he has to go back! When I was brushing Max's teeth tonight I was telling him that I was really going to miss him when he goes back to school and that tomorrow would be our last day home for the break. The roles totally reversed from the past and this time it was him telling me that he only had to go two days and then he'd be home with me for two days. My heart melted:)

Here is our annual holiday highlight run down!!

1. We had a nice little family Christmas here at home on the 22nd/23rd. We wrote a letter to Santa and asked him to come a little early and he delivered! I wanted to start a little "Christmas Eve" tradition with just our immediate family so I asked the kids what their favorite meal was and I was going to make it for them. Here's what they said: 1. hyvee sesame chicken 2. pancakes 3. Culvers. Ouch. After briefly entertaining the idea of making homemade sesame chicken, we wisely decided to order it in. (one step up from hyvee chinese:) We opened gifts from us to the kids and from the kids to us that night....and we also told the kids about our trip to Disney in February. They were pretty excited about it and the countdown has begun!

2. Sunday morning the 23rd the kids woke up a little before 7 and were ready to see if Santa came! Chris and I were not quite ready as we were up with Ivy most of the night before:( She had strep and vomited on me in our bed! She slept through most of gift opening and woke up a new girl so that was a positive for sure.  The big gifts Santa left were a remote control monster truck (grave digger) for Max, Mya got the Butterscotch Fur Real Pony  and Ivy got a chair with her name on it. Mya's reaction was probably the best one...when she saw the pony she said, "I only wanted a little one and look....He got me a big one!" (note to santa for next year....ask more specifics on which item EXACTLY that she wants...ask her to describe color/size/shape more specifically before you go out and spend WAY too much money on something that she wasn't expecting:) Max and Mya loved all of their presents and Chris and I agreed that the little presents always turn out to be the best presents for our kids.

3. Sunday afternoon we headed up to Decorah in time to see the Vikings win and to let the kids (and Chris) run off some energy up at Luther. They played tennis, basketball and ran around the track for a couple of hours. That is always a highlight of our Decorah Christmas!

4. Christmas Eve the kids went sledding at Luther with their cousins and had an absolute blast. When they got home from that we were ready to open presents with Grandpa Rog and Grandma Pat! We always do a little appetizer and wine party when we're opening presents and it's so fun. My mom sets up the "kids" table with kid friendly appetizers and they feel so special. It won't be long and they won't want to be at the kids table so we should take advantage of this while we can! Tara was on facetime with us most of the gift opening which was nice because we were missing her not being with us. Highlights from this Christmas were Mya's baby with long blonde hair and Max's football cards and football gloves! The kids had a great time with Olivia and Grace the entire time we were in Decorah. They played and played and played some more. We comment every time that we can't beleive we don't have to break up more fights with them, but we really don't. The evening was capped off with a suprise visit from Santa himself! He was super busy that night, but made time to come and visit the Huinker grandkids:)

5. Christmas morning we headed up to Minnesota bright and early. I'm just thankful we were all together this year and not puking like last year! We made it to Grandpa Bill's in record time and had a great Christmas with Linda's family. At Thanksgiving Max told some people that he wanted a remote control truck for Christmas and they listened! He got one from everyone and ended up with 5 remote control vehicles this year! Thankfully he was a really good sport about it and enjoys racing each and every one of them...some of them at the same time because there aren't enough frequencies  Mya got an Easy Bake Oven and Ivy got a bunch of presents that Mya thinks are hers!

6. Christmas night we went up to Chris's parents and enjoyed yet another gift opening along with some traditional Dominoes pizza thanks to Uncle Jeff! The kids were so excited and wanted to open everything rightthissecond and put batteries in all of it! The highlights were a microphone for Mya, a build-it yourself kit for Max complete with some "real" tools, and a bread machine for me!

7. Wednesday we headed to the St. Paul Children's Museum with Chris's parents. We hadn't been there before, but it was something we had been wanting to do so we went! It was a really nice time and the kids loved it. Ivy was a bit of a handful so we were thankful to have some extra hands there to watch her. The kids could have stayed there for hours on end. I have a couple of pictures, but it may take a day or two to upload them. The computer is sooooooooo slow tonight!

8. Thursday morning Linda, Mya and I went on a little "girls only excursion" to a local cupcake shop. The person who owns this shop won some show on food network and I think it was deserved! The lady behind the counter told us that we might want to take a container because we may not be able to finish the cupcake. I was like yeah right....there's no way I'm not finishing 1 measly cupcake. Well...1/3 of my cupcake came home with me. It was so rich and between the sugar and the coffee I had that morning, I was a shaky mess! It was fun to go out and do some girl things and I'm looking forward to more of those outings.

9. Friday morning we got up and had a cup of coffee with Chris's grandpa in Bloomington and headed home with 1 very full car and 3 very tired kids! We came home to 1 very messy house too! We got everything put away and did some major organizing and goodwill donating this last weekend. The garbage comes tomorrow morning and we're crossing our fingers that they take all of our garbage and recycling! It will fill the curb:)

10. Last night we celebrated New Year Eve with the Neymeyers. They were back home from Georgia so they drove to Dubuque yesterday and spent the night before taking off on a 16 hour trek home today. We stayed up until midnight....(that's HUGE for me) playing cards, drinking wine, eating cupcakes, drinking coffee and laughing a lot. It was so fun to have them here and to see all of our kids pick up like they've been playing together every day for years.

Happy New Year Everyone!! Stay tuned for my New Years Resolution blog which will include blogging more:)