We said goodbye to Katie from Stanley and Ramona's house yesterday, and that felt like the end of our Christmas plans. Now it's just the end of Brian's break and project time!
It was so nice to have Katie and Kirk in town this year. I know we will rarely be lucky enough to have either one of them here, let alone both together!
Everett was 7 months old last Christmas and 19 months this Christmas. Although he was much more aware this year, I wouldn't say he "got it." He liked opening presents and playing with his presents, but he didn't realize there were presents inside the wrapped boxes under the tree.
I expect next year will be the first truly aware Christmas. So we have almost a year to decide what our family traditions will be and what to do with the Santa Claus thing.
Our schedule this year was much like last year, Christmas Eve with the Cisneroses, Christmas Day brunch with my parents, Christmas dinner back with the Cisneroses. But this year we got to spend Christmas Morning at our OWN HOUSE! It was exciting! Unfortunately we woke to a frozen pipe, and no water put a damper on our morning. The first time our pipes froze was Christmas morning!! How rude! (P.S. we taught Everett how to say that, a la Stephanie Tanner).
We may have started a tradition of having Christmas Eve Eve dinner at our house. It was great. Both sets of parents plus Katie and Kirk came over and we had chili and played games. Nice excuse to have a really clean house before Christmas, then have leftovers for the next few days (need to make sure we always make something that leaves leftovers).
Going back in time a little. We got a visit from Gretchen and Mark Thobe earlier in the month. That belongs in the Christmas blog, because it was sort of a holiday visit. It's always nice to see them, and it was fun to see all the sibs (Kirk, Gretchen, and Gion) together.
I wanted to mention a few things we did when Katie was here.
Feeding the animals at Avila Valley Barn:
Playing and lunch at The Custom House in Avila:
Wine Tasting at Calcareous Winery:
And finally visiting "Baba" Stanley and "Gama" Ramona:
It's been an amazing couple weeks. Thanks so much to Gion and Phil for hosting so many evenings and treating us to so many meals.
Now to rest and recoup for a few days before Brian goes back to work.
2 comments:
You forgot about the super awesome parade!!! HA! Glad you guys had fun with Auntie Katie. Your tree was so pretty!!!!!
I know!!!! I thought about including the parade, but I wanted a short post (never gonna happen).
I need to send you the pictures I took, though. {:
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