The Week After Christmas

We didn't really have any plans for the week after Christmas.  I figured that the second week of school vacation would be kind of slow and lazy and that by the end of the week, we would be ready for our regular schedule.

To my great surprise, Tim ended up taking off a few days to just stay home, hang out and get a few jobs done around the house.  It was so nice to have what felt like an extended weekend to do a few things that we always talk about but never do and also to hash out some home repair and maintenance details.

Our first order of business was a morning hike.  It was actually pretty cold that morning and we really needed our hats and gloves.  Cate and Timmy made it around the whole trail.  Cate made it with no whining and complaining, Timmy made it up the mountain without whining...not so much down.

Next to Cate, Zeke got the award for happiest camper.  He doesn't usually get to go out on a hike first thing in the morning.  I guess that's a good day for a dog.

Timmy's main complaint during the hike was that he was hungry (as usual), so after the 45 minute hike, we stopped for bagels on the way home.  We also picked out new paint colors for the outside of our house before settling in for an afternoon rest.  

One of my goals for this winter is to actually do something with all of the citrus fruit in our back yard.  Since mexican food is often on the menu, I do use a lot of lemons and limes, but so far, we have not used any oranges.

 I saw a small, manual juicer at the grocery store and decided to pick it up so that the kids could help to squeeze some orange juice and maybe some lemonade.

The oranges that we have don't really come apart in sections, so they are kind of hard to eat, but they are very juicy.

 See that orange juice in the bottom of the juicer?  It took about 30 oranges to make that.  Each of us got about two sips in a cup.  Fun afternoon activity.  Not doing it again especially considering that we don't even drink orange juice around here.  Maybe next year we will think about investing in a better juicer so that it isn't so labor intensive!

After the juice experiment, Cate and Timmy went up to her room to work on beading necklaces.  Cate got a beading kit from Uncle Rusty for Christmas and she LOVES making jewelry with it.  Timmy was pretty intent on his work too although I had to give Cate the stink eye to get her to allow Timmy to touch her precious beads.

I'm not sure what Timmy is looking at here.  Maybe Cate's black striped leggings, navy blue dress and heart patterned shirt.  I would like to say that she dressed herself and that we were allowing her to make choices or something like that. Actually Tim picked that out for her because he was, and still is, convinced that it looks good like that.

This morning we were rudely jolted back into the school routine, but it was a little bit easier than usual because we are all rested up and relaxed from a fun two weeks at home.

First Phoenix Christmas

 This year for Christmas, we hosted both sides of our family in our new house.  I had visions of being very organized and getting lots of food made and frozen in advance.  Then our oven broke and I was without an oven or stove for two and half weeks.  Until two days before our first guests arrived.  So that was out the window.

Organization aside, we had a fun, relaxing family Christmas.  The weather was nice but cool enough for sweaters and pants, so we even used our fireplace quite a bit.  For just about the entire time that we've lived here, I wondered why in the world we had a fireplace since in the summer, I didn't even want to look at it in case that somehow made me even more hot.  In December and January, we are getting lots of use out of it which is nice.

We went to church the day before Christmas Eve in an effort to keep things on the calm and relaxing side.  I didn't want to pack too much into any one day, so we spread our activities out.

We tried to snap a few photos outside of our church since it is really pretty, but the kids were not interested.  At all.

On Christmas Eve we made a turkey and got out our wedding china for the very first time which was fun.

Cate and Timmy were so excited about everything.  We took them outside on Christmas Eve to see if they could hear Santa's sleigh.  They did hear a very loud bell ringing (almost like someone was ringing it right behind them...) and both of them started crying.  So much for Christmas Eve magic.  

We played lots of games at night and Cate participated for the first time.  She absolutely loved playing charades.  She took several turns and did a great job.  Timmy was not so interested.  He picked up one of Cate's purses and went to work collecting scraps of paper from everyone to put in it.

On Christmas morning Cate and Timmy found their big present, a clubhouse/swing set in front of the tree. We can't wait to get it set up outside.

Cate and Timmy both got such fun presents.  Cate was very excited to get her new cupcake set from Bee Bee and Mr. B. This is her second set.  She loved the one she got from Auntie Jenn so much last year that she wore out the markers and has been waiting for an occasion to get a fresh cupcake set.

Timmy got lots of "Cars" related gifts, but he was very excited about getting "Sally" and "Mac."  He loves his cars.

We spent the rest of the day lounging around and playing with new toys.  It was so much fun to have a full house for a few days and we were definitely sad to see everyone go.