Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all had as much crazy fun as we did. Though I must say, my appreciation for moms during this busy season has grown this year. I confess I had several moments when I wished myself 20 years younger to a simpler time when very little depended on me. So thank you to my wonderful mother who made so many childhood Christmases so memorable for us. I hope my children can look back on their Christmas memories with the same fondness.
DECEMBER 23rd
GINGERBREAD HOUSES
Our original plan was to have friend over, but tis the season not only for Christmas, but for viruses, and therefore our friends weren't able to make it. That was perhaps a good thing since I decided to be adventurous this year and attempt to make our own gingerbread. There were many complications along the way. Let's just say that the difference in color is not faulty lighting from the camera, but the difference between burned gingerbread, and not so burned gingerbread. We also experienced the effect of soft gingerbread. . . . yummy, but not sturdy enough for walls. Fortunately Dr. Glue Gun (Daddy) was in the house and he saved the say with his strategically placed reinforcements! |
| These complications did not stop us from binging on candy and reaching for the creative child within. Sergito ended up making his own house, which for some reason I have no picture of here. Emma also made a graham cracker nativity. Also, not displayed here . . . hmm faulty planning Ms. blogmaker tsk. tsk. Anyway as you can see we have mom's side of the house, fabulously symmetrical, and we have the fun loving kids side of the house WITH . . . Santa on the roof and mushrooms on either side of the door (there's a closeup of Santa and his reindeer in the top picture, courtesy of Emmita). |
A Little Anecdote:
On the topic of Santa, Emma and I had the following conversation earlier this month soon after the Ward Christmas Party:
E (mostly thinking to herself) - Santa, The toothfairy, The Easter Bunny, these are all things I need to figure out . . . if they're real or not. (I'm not quite sure why she was so concerned with the Easter Bunny since we've never celebrated it, but I guess it all does fall in the same category). Yeah I don't believe in Santa.
M - Oh, so then where do all the presents come from?
E - Well, there is a guy! And he DOES come down the chimney and leave presents and stuff the stockings, but he DOESN'T live in the North Pole!
M - Really? Why do you say that?
E - Well because at the Christmas party I saw Santa getting into his car, but he was just carrying his jacket and he was in regular pants, so he doesn't live in the North Pole.
M - Oh, OK. . . Wait, so there is a guy who comes down our chimney to leave presents, but he's NOT Santa?
E - Yeah.
So basically she does believe in Santa? Just a creepier version of Santa? . . . . Not sure how I feel about that!
December 24th
NATIVITY, CEREAL, PJ's & the PARK!
A bit bummed by the realization that there was NO WAY we were having our picturesque White Christmas this year, we brightened at the thought that it was actually warm enough to go to the park! With a high of 60, we dashed off to Summit Park, our new favorite place to go, where we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of climbing on eclectic playgrounds, sliding down their fake grassy knolls on cardboard, and putting the entire family on their deluxe seesaw! All in all, it was a great replacement for idyllic sledding, and far, far, FAR warmer!
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| Emma introduced Alicia to slides, which she thoroughly enjoyed while Clark practiced his climbing skills. |
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| Emma and Clark demonstrating their spider like qualities, while Sergito rolled around the luscious artificial grass with Alicia. |
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| With Alicia on my lap we all enjoyed a ride on the see saw. |
Blessed my the modern marvels of video chat, we enjoyed a live nativity with Abuelita and Abuelito Roundy. Emmita doubled as Mary and the Angel. Clark was Joseph, a shepherd, and a wiseman. Sergito was the innkeeper, a shepherd, and a wiseman. Daddy was the narrator while also assisting with baby Jesus, and manning the camera so Abuelita and Abuelito could participate as both audience and choir. Mom was the out of tune piano player and the backstage crew. And naturally, Alicia was the baby Jesus who was far too wiggly for a newborn, but did ok for little spurts with the bottle in her mouth. Since we were all so busy being part of the show, we have no pictures to document the event. Sorry!
Cereal
The Roundy tradition lives on in our annual cereal treasure hunt. Even if there were no other benefit to depriving them of cereal the rest of the year . . . the excitement they get out of this, makes it all worth it! For those of you losing sleep at night wondering what the hype is all about, we've provided a video of the beginning of our hunt so you can experience the excitement! (OK, in reality it's not THAT exciting, . . . I just don't want you watching the video and coming out all disappointed)
PJ's
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| As tradition would have it, the kids always get to open their gift of PJ's on the 24th, so here they are in their new PJ's. Unfortunately it was so warm, Alicia only wore hers for the picture, but she CLEARLY enjoyed them for the 5 minutes she wore them:) |
December 25th
PRESENTS!
Now, lest you might think that we have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas while seeing our incredibly large section of the blog devoted to gifts, we did start the morning out with a song, and to prove it, here's the video. You may want to plug your ears while listening to it, but our heart was in the right place. And in case you're wondering, yes, Alicia is eating a very healthy chocolate chip cookie for breakfast.
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| Sibling love, sibling presents. there was supposed to be another one in the corner, but it didn't copy right and it's 1:30 in the morning while I'm doing this, so I have no desire to fix it. |
Alicia's First Present
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| We often seem to have a theme that goes along with our Christmas gifts. We had a year of superheros, we had a year of teenage mutant ninja turtles, we had a year of Ben 10, and this year, we have the year of DRAGONBALL! They watch in in Spanish so at least they are learning something from it:) |
They were really excited to get these gifts and they spent a good portion of the day playing with them. Here's some videos of them opening dragonball gifts:
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| Emma's greatest wish this year was a sewing machine. So here's our future seamstress. Hopefully I will soon be able to put her to work for Halloween! |
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| Cito and Clark sporting their sporty goods |
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| One of the sweetest experiences this year was to see Sergito truly experience the gift of giving. He used his saved money to buy everyone a gift, spending more they usually can afford to spend on each person. He was super excited to have everyone open the gifts he got them and he put a lot of thought into what each person would like. Here are most of the gifts he gave though not all. On the way home from the store, in a moment of serious reflection he said to himslef, "I'm really generous!" . . . I guess we can work on humility next. |
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| I guess a secondary theme to this year would be Nerf Guns. Technically Sergito's is from his birthday, but here are my boys, ready for battle, much to Emma's dismay! Though before you get too concerned for our damsel in distress, you should know she has a nerf bow and arrow that she doesn't hesitate to use on her brothers. |
Unfortunately we don't have Dad receiving his gift on video, but it may be fun to note that the card read as follows:
For - The King of the House
To - remind his subjects who's in charge!
Video reactions to Clark's gun:
Somehow we managed to not get any pictures of Alicia with her presents, but here's another cute video of her sort of opening another present:
