This year we celebrated Christmas three times. On Christmas Eve we made some chocolate covered pretzels, decorated a gingerbread house and baked a few cookies for Santa. We left the house and cookies, with milk by the fireplace as a treat for Santa. He needs fuel to keep on going, right?
We let Aiden and Sophie open the presents from "mommy & daddy" on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas morning Aiden woke up to all the presents from Santa. The biggest one being a Lightning McQueen bicycle. And our present from Sophie - she started to crawl! We are in trouble now...
The weeks prior to Christmas we asked Aiden what he wanted. He kept saying Batman and Superman, even though he has no idea who they are. So, we got him a couple actionfigures of Batman and Spiderman. You can not find Superman anywhere. Anyway, so after he opens those he said, "Hey, Santa forgot Superman". Kids...
Christmas afternoon we went to the Johnsons and ate Christmas dinner and opened more presents. As soon as Aiden saw the Buzz Lightyear he was too distracted to open any other presents. Of course this meant Ashley couldn't open any presents either since he was trying to get Buzz out of his box.
Sunday after Christmas we drove to Kansas to celebrate Christmas with the Yus. Ashley suggested we get up early...waaaaay early...so we could get a head start before the kiddos woke up. It worked out pretty well. They were both awake when we put them in the car, but fell asleep after about 30-45 minutes.
We were able to drive for about 4 hours or so before they woke up. The second half of the drive was a little less smooth. ;-) We were all happy to finally arrive at halmoni & halabuji's house, that's for sure.
Aiden was so happy to get Woody & Jessie and more Batman! Sophie got a walker, but that was delivered to our house. Thank goodness, because I'm not sure how much more we could have packed in our car.
While we were in Kansas I was able to get together with a few of my friends, including my flower girl and ring bearer! They've gotten so big, I can't believe it. And as cute as ever! They are both gonna be heartbreakers.
I was so excited to see my friends baby girls. They were born around the same time as Sophie, each about 6 weeks or so apart. Sophie was first, then Shelby, then Hannah. Such cuties!
Since the whole family was in town my mom made an appointment for us to get some pictures taken. I was a little scared about how the kiddos would act/behave, but luckily I didn't have anything to worry about. Our photographer had no shame and did whatever it took to get them to smile. The only problem was Sophie trying to stick her finger in her mouth the whole time. :-P I think we got some awesome pics.
Of course while we were there we ate and ate and ate and ate. My mom is the best cook around. Even though she doesn't like to do it, she's good at it and we love her for it. She had a Korean feast waiting for us the first night and we pretty much ate on it for the rest of the week. We also ate at Jess & Jim's (a steakhouse) one night and Aiden had fun watching the train in the bar area go around and around and around. And there was a real train that passed by the restaurant a few times that was mighty loud.
Let's see, we also ate at Oklahoma Joe's, which is on Anthony Bourdain's list of like the top places to eat. When we got there, we stood in a line that was all the way to the door. But, honestly, and OK Joe lovers, don't hate me, it doesn't hold a candle to Texas BBQ. Seriously people. Maybe I'm just biased or something, but the ribs were good, but not great. The pulled pork was dry, the sausage was good though. And I've never been a huge KC brisket fan. They had a sandwich called the z-man that was pretty delish. I'm glad Jennifer turned me on to that. And the fries were good. :-) The beans were eh and the potato salad was less than eh to me. Anyway, enough about the food.
Ok, just one more thing about food. One of my favorite presents this year was an ice cream maker. I made some vanilla ice cream and man was it good. Creamy and luscious. MMMMM...
Our 3 year old was getting cabin fever inside the house, so Ashley tried to take him outside to play in the snow, but our little guy isn't much on cold...or wearing gloves...or his hat, so that only lasted a little while. At least long enough to make a snowman.
I asked around to see if there was anywhere we could go, indoors, to let him blow off some steam. There was a place in the Olathe mall called Monkey Bizness that had slides and mazes and things like that. I think he had a good time, despite the big kids trying to run him over.
Tuesday night we left the sleeping kiddos (or so we thought) with eemo and went to see Avatar in 3D. It was awesome. I loved how I felt like I was immersed in the forest of that planet and just felt like I was IN the movie. I think it was about 2 1/2 hours long, but it didn't feel like it to me. We wanted to see it at an IMAX theater, but it was sold out. Poor Jennifer stayed up with Sophie because she decided she wanted to wake up and not go back to sleep. Sorry!
We got up EARLY Thursday morning and headed out. Neither child wanted to go back to sleep and about an hour after we left, we ran over what we thought was snow, but instead was a dead animal. Said animal decided to leave us with a present...a flat tire...its bone was stuck in the tire. Luckily we were able to pull over into a very well lit gas station and Ashley was able to put the spare on. We drove to one of the nearby towns (Lamar, MO) and waited till Walmart opened and was able to get it plugged. And we were off again.
And that was our wonderfully crazy Christmas this year. :-)
1 comment:
Looks like you had a great Christmas! We felt the same way about Avatar... it kind of sucks you in... it was awesome. The best movie I've seen in awhile.
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