Merry Christmas 2015

Christmas flew by.  I can't believe it's over.  Every year, the fall and Christmas season happen in the blink of an eye, and more and more I feel like I don't enjoy it as much as I want to because of work.  But we still had some great times and made some new traditions and memories.  So all is good.  

A few days before Christmas, we got a call for help from our community service director at Milton.  A local school we work with had over 50 homeless families and needed some used toys.  So we put together a bag and brought it to Milton.  Carlos and the boys went with me, and the boys enjoyed looking around the Student Center.

The particularly liked the artwork hanging from the ceiling, a Rube Goldberg-like contraption.

During the day on Christmas Eve, our neighbors Tony and Joanne came to our rescue--they saw us out walking and called us over.  They had presents for the boys.  They were "decorate-your-own-Stormtrooper" heads.  They kept the boys busy for over an hour.  Their hands were black with marker when they were through, but it was all good.  Well worth the time it kept them busy!  Thanks to our awesome neighbors for thinking of them--so nice!

As usual, Christmas Eve was spent at Auntie Carol and Kitchen's house.  And, as usual, it was fun and festive.  The food was excellent: turkey, squash, green bean casserole, and lobster pie...and tons of desserts, too.

I became Tia Kaka to Baby Alice, who pooped on me about 30 seconds after arriving in her beautiful Christmas dress.  She got to change into her comfy onesie, and I got to wash poop off my arm!  ;-)  Poor girl!

Kitchen was so good with Baby Alice...She didn't cry with him (or poop on him).

On Christmas Day, we opened presents and stockings around 5am...boys were up as usual, despite going to bed around 8:30pm.  Carlos has most of the pictures on his iPhone, so I'll post others once he sends those to me.

Look!  Santa came!

And he left a few presents downstairs, too!

Christmas presents this year (as usual, Santa is very frugal!):
Bob the Builder hat, tool belt, and tool box with real kid-sized tools
Star wars cookie cutters
Star wars clothing (Pjs, sweatshirts, t-shirts) and winter boots (R2D2)
Darth Vader comforters for their beds
Books (including Arthur, Mr. Whiskers, The Stupid Family, and others)
K'Nex
Zoobs
Trio Blocks (like Legos, but different)
construction vehicles
vintage Pez dispensers
Thomas puzzles
vintage pinball machine (table top--small)
vintage matchbox cars and carrying case

Here they are opening stockings.  It took about 3 minutes for them to rip through everything in there!

Can't keep his eyes open!  He's thrilled about Play-Doh and Star Wars "trick-or-treats" (gummies).

Then we moved to the tree...Carlos has those pics.

The Star Wars cookie cutters were a big hit with Adi.  They love making and decorating cookies!

Christmas Day, mom and dad came over for brunch.  It was a mixed bag because my yummy Pioneer Woman french toast casserole didn't cook in time and it was all runny.  It was ready just as everyone left.  :-(  Right after mom and dad left, we did Facetime with David and family and Felipe and Marimy (our Spanish family).  It was the first time we'd done it (not sure why when it's so easy!), and it was so lovely to see them all!

Then, we went to Grumpy's in the evening.

The 26th I brought Carlos to the airport at 4am!  Mom came to the house at that unGodly hour so that I didn't have to wake the boys and take them with us.  Sebastian woke at 4:30 anyway...they were pretty awful the rest of the day, including at my mom's house for our Christmas there.  We stayed about an hour--enough only to open presents and eat a rushed dinner because they were such a pain.  Then we left and the presents stayed at Mini's house until they could behave.

The next day, they were sad and asking to go back to Mini's to get their presents and show us that they know how to behave.  So we went over and they were good.  So they got their presents back (LEGOS!!!!)

I'd say the boys are most excited at this point about their Legos that they got for Christmas from Tío Jim, Grumpy, and Mini.  I'm glad because I love helping them build them!  It's fun for me, too!  They are pretty good at helping me find the right pieces in the instructions and telling me where to put the pieces.  They don't have enough dexterity in their fingers yet to really put the more complicated stuff together, but they get the concept and love helping me put things together.  And they love playing with the stuff after it's assembled.

Yesterday I managed to get most of the Christmas stuff down and put away while the boys were at school.  The trees are still up and I'll probably leave them up until Carlos is home to help with it.  Makes me sad to take the stuff down, but it actually feels better now without all the clutter.  I do hate this time of year, though...after the holidays it's such a let down.  It doesn't help that it's snowing/sleeting right now and freezing after such a mild December.  Yuck.