Merry Christmas! 2016

 It seems that Christmas sneaks up more and more quickly around this place.  I was scheduled for two half days at school on Dec 19 and 20, and Jason ended up getting sick for both days.  I had to call out for Tuesday, which made the last day of school before break very chaotic.  We ended up taking Jason to the doctor once we started running a fever because I figured if I did nothing, it would turn into pneumonia by Christmas Eve (and if I brought him in, the doctor would find nothing wrong other than a cold!).  Turns out that Jason had an ear infection, so I'm glad we took him in.  We laid low for a couple of days and during that time, we managed to visit Santa for a quick picture and visit with my friend Katie at the mall for some playground time and pretzels!  
And then on Friday Dec 23rd we handed the younger two kids off to Margaret and Bob for some "adults and older kids" time in DC--seeing "Wicked" at the Kennedy Center!  It was awesome!  
Enjoy some pictures from Christmas Day!

Emily is forever playing school with her baby dolls so "Santa" brought her this teacher set!

Dino shirt!  Just what I always wanted!

Now that the kids can read names, they both wanted to hand out the gifts!

Jason is currently in love with his weapon set!  It came with a holster so that he can patrol the house for "bad guys".

Already in teacher mode!

Jason got a dino figurine set so he immediately started painting them.

Emily has a slight addiction to Baby Alive dolls.  Here she is with her new Dancing Darcy.

Willow was not amused by the Christmas shenanigans.

Matching Poppy the Troll nightgowns!

Everyone stayed in pajamas for the whole day and we just chilled.  Right around dinnertime, Caroline started giving Emily a french lesson (no idea why) and these two spent almost 3 hours in "French class"!  Emily can now count to 10 in French and took 3 "Quizzes" that Caroline made, all with At on them!

Christmas Eve Fun!

 We have kept up a nice tradition of visiting Peggy and Joe for Christmas Eve dinner.  Mary Jo and John made the trip with their little two so that the cousins could have some Christmas fun together.  We had a fabulous dinner of crab balls, meatballs, deviled eggs, potato salad, etc. along with Peggy's famous lemon bars and applesauce cake.  No one could move after all that food but the kids were desperate to do presents.  They also played on the air hockey table upstairs with all the talent that 4-6 year olds possess.  
The upwrapping of presents was a blur of wrapping paper, dinosaurs, puppy surprises, leap pad books, socks, underwear, sheet sets, towels, books, tools, gloves, and more!  
Enjoy these lovelies from Christmas Eve!