Love Them

I love these two and this photo of them together.

That’s all.

Some Traveling Notes

We just drove two days halfway across the country.

Again.

The night before we left we enjoyed the snow that fell during the day.

Good thing I packed their snow things!

Now I just need some things for myself. I still can’t feel my bum.

Poppi got out his tractor and gave the kids a ride. And their mother may have joined them for the majority of it.

Even in this blurry picture you can see how much fun they are having. I promise you I was having more once I put down the camera and jumped on with them.

Except for that numb bum part. And my fingers? I couldn’t feel those either.

But it was REALLY fun.

Then we went inside for hot chocolate that Grammi made!

Just like when I was a kid! It was special!

The next morning we started our drive.

And this girlie is definitely in the running for best baby road tripper EVER.

Like in all the history of the world.

I mean, I haven’t done research on, like, all the babies of the world. But I’m pretty sure that if I did, she’d be in the tippy top of the demographic.

She has spent four entire days of the last two weeks of her life strapped into this child restraint seat.

And she just smiles at ya. Or coos. Or talks. Or plays with toys. Or looks out the window.

Or sleeps.

It’s pretty much amazing.

And this kid is pretty great in the car too. This particular creation is finger lights cleverly stowed inside a silly putty egg.

And there you have a glowing egg!

Cool, huh? He’s fun.

And regarding the other child. She did great on the way east. Today, finishing the drive west? Um, notsomuch.

But I love her still. And forever. And always.

She’s got spunk, that’s for sure.

In other news, Lil’ A slept in the tent for the first time last night!

I never trained her to get her used to it, but we had to pull it out last night. I was worried. But I shouldn’t have been. I put her in it and closed the door. She cried for approximately one second, found her fingers, rolled over and went to sleep.

Well, okay!

In the morning she was snoozin’ good.

That was that.

 

So after 22.5 hours in the car in the past two days, numerous vehicles and trailers spotted on the side of the road (awful roads) we returned home!

There is no place like home.

Aaaaand the moment I walked in I received the reward of all my frantic hard work trying to clean my house top to bottom as we were leaving.

Glory halleluiah it was so clean and beautiful.

By the way I’m not ready to put Christmas decorations away yet.

LASTLY… I was so happy to have a very healthy stack of Christmas cards to open. It was so fun and I feel so loved!

Whew!

Gift Wrapping Contest

My family has always had a thing for wrapping gifts. As in… we like to do it! And be creative. And original. And put thought and time into it. We did it growing up but haven’t done it much in the past 10 years, mostly because we haven’t been together for many Christmases!

This year we were ALL TOGETHER. ON CHRISTMAS DAY! What a gift. What  a joy!

So we decided to do an official Christmas Wrapping Contest 2013!

The categories were:

1. Classic/Traditional Wrapping

2. Avant-Garde

3. Unconventional Materials

4. Tacky

My sister even printed out a score sheet. She’s so great.

How it worked was the one member of each couple did the wrapping and actually entered the contest (Dad, myself and my Sister) and the other half of each couple did the judging (Mom, Mike and my bro-in-law Dave).

There was a scoring system created. (Which we later found out had some flaws, woops!). We’ll do better next year.

Okay! First category! Classic/Traditional…

Lovely, eh?

The winner was me, which I’m not sure why… the bow looks rather smooshed and crinkly to me (well we did have to pack it in the van for the long drive!). In any case, I won. Yay me.

Next up… Avant-Garde…

Ooooohhhhhh.

More detailed…

Impressive, eh?!

Well no big surprise… the tree won! Way to go Dad! We then got a fascinating detailed description of how he did it. So fun.

Next: Unconventional…

Bubble wrap and fabric scraps.

A stuffed fish?!

A spray painted Cd jewel case and some very cool electrical wire.

Sister won with the fishy! (Yes, there really is a gift inside!!)

Last up… tacky:

I had two entries. And I got accused of cheating…

Awful wrapping, and price still on?! Torn paper? A gift from Dad to himself (it was true, actually) Sequin ladybug? Taaacky.

These two were actually STICKY. Yes, sticky. (Indeed, two of us had the same twist on words and interpreted tacky literally. Although I have to say Dad’s was much more sticky than mine (on the left). Both the wrapping and the paper were impressively sticky!)

Mismatched papers? Tacky. I actually really like it.

Mine won? The judges decided.

So that was it! The end. The problem with scoring was that I won the most categories but I think Dad actually had the most points?

WE ARE ALL WINNERS!! Ha! It was so fun. I love my family.

That was Christmas Eve. So the kids set the cookies out and we called it a (wonderful) night.

The Best of Christmastime (In Photos)

(warning… it’s a long ‘un)