I love Christmas! I love the time with family, the food, and the feeling of Christmas joy around you. This year Christmas fell on a Monday which meant a 3 day weekend to celebrate!! You gotta love that. We made the trip to Kansas to spend Christmas weekend with my family. It was a weekend of games, movies, and a little hometown shopping. Saturday evening we cooked our annual Chinese feast! Mongolian Beef, Orange Chicken, Fried Rice, and Dumplings...it's making my mouth water even now! Sunday was Christmas Eve. We went sledding in the yard that day. Dad/Pappy pulled all of us girls; including me, around for a quick sled. Then we all got cleaned up and ready to head to church to celebrate Jesus's birthday. Funny story, we weren't thinking and Ella sat close to her Pappy in church. Never a good idea to have the two ornery ones sit with each other in church :). During the service I saw Ella whispering in Pappy's ear and Pappy said, "what?". Ella ramped up the volume saying somewhat loudly "Merry Christmas ya Filthy Animal"! LOL!! Super embarrassing and funny! After Christmas service we had a delicious dinner of turkey, pheasant, and duck. The girls loved the pheasant! We open presents and enjoyed our evening together. Christmas morning we found that Santa had found us away from home! So we opened Santa gifts and stockings, had brunch, and then headed towards home.
Prepping our Chinese feast!!
Serious Poker Faces
This pony was first on Ava's list! Can you tell how excited she is?!!
Cookies and milk ready for Santa!
We loaded up our Tahoe to the brim and we headed for home. We made it home in time for pizza and more presents with our little family. We were surprised to see that Santa had stopped by our Omaha home too!! We must have been very good this year ;). I so love my sweet little family. No other gifts needed under the tree; my gifts hug me goodnight every night.
"I always wanted this!!"
We adopted a cheetah for Ava and an Elephant for Ella through the world wildlife fund. They received symbolic stuffed animals as a gift.
Our next Christmas celebration happened the next weekend; New Year's Weekend for another 3 day weekend!! This time with Matt's side of the family. Everyone was able to meet at the farm for the weekend and stayed through New Year's Day. Our little family unfortunately succumbed to colds and sinus infections in between the weeks so we didn't head home again until Saturday so we could get another full night of sleep and rest before the chaos ensued. This chaos is a place I love so much with people I love so much!! 8 adults, 6 kids, and 7 dogs. It was so cold (Negative Temps) that we weren't able to get out much but the kiddos still bundled up and went out to play for a short time. Otherwise the weekend was filled with delicious food, an evening at the local bar with the siblings, and lots of games: Tripoli, Old Maid, UNO, Pitch...we love em all. We opened gifts after a delicious lunch on Saturday. Sunday we switched to New Years Eve mode. Since it was so cool and the kiddos were exhausted, we attempted to celebrate New Years at 10pm with sparkling grape juice and fireworks and then send the kiddos to bed. However, 4 of the kids had different ideas and were awake to celebrate the real NYE with us!! This time however they toasted the new year with Atkins Shake.
Happy New Year!!
Stories with Pappy
We loaded up our Tahoe to the brim and we headed for home. We made it home in time for pizza and more presents with our little family. We were surprised to see that Santa had stopped by our Omaha home too!! We must have been very good this year ;). I so love my sweet little family. No other gifts needed under the tree; my gifts hug me goodnight every night.
Our next Christmas celebration happened the next weekend; New Year's Weekend for another 3 day weekend!! This time with Matt's side of the family. Everyone was able to meet at the farm for the weekend and stayed through New Year's Day. Our little family unfortunately succumbed to colds and sinus infections in between the weeks so we didn't head home again until Saturday so we could get another full night of sleep and rest before the chaos ensued. This chaos is a place I love so much with people I love so much!! 8 adults, 6 kids, and 7 dogs. It was so cold (Negative Temps) that we weren't able to get out much but the kiddos still bundled up and went out to play for a short time. Otherwise the weekend was filled with delicious food, an evening at the local bar with the siblings, and lots of games: Tripoli, Old Maid, UNO, Pitch...we love em all. We opened gifts after a delicious lunch on Saturday. Sunday we switched to New Years Eve mode. Since it was so cool and the kiddos were exhausted, we attempted to celebrate New Years at 10pm with sparkling grape juice and fireworks and then send the kiddos to bed. However, 4 of the kids had different ideas and were awake to celebrate the real NYE with us!! This time however they toasted the new year with Atkins Shake.
Nai Nai's help and taste testewr
The girls got huge snowmen and use them as pillows and beds!
Mark made these coat rakes for the boys. So cool!
