Christmas Week

What can I say about Christmas week? It was crazy. It was non-stop. It was hectic. It involved lots of travelling. It was full of family. It was awesome.

We left home on Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. and arrived at my mom's shortly after lunch. When I say we, it is: Myself, Jason, Kaleb, Boomer, Bella, my brother and all sorts of stuff. (Side note: I use to think our truck was huge, and it is quite big, but it sure seems tiny when its packed to the brim.) The next morning, we packed up all our stuff, minus my brother, and headed to Jason's parents.

We arrived at his parents just before lunch and spent the afternoon there (making marshmallows!) before getting all dressed up and heading to his grandmother's for Christmas Eve supper. There were 20 some adults and a handful of kids all crammed into her house! We had an amazing meal, followed by the younger grandchildren and now great-grandchildren getting gifts, and grandma opening all sorts from the family. And I have to say I'm pretty proud of my boy. We were there until almost 10:00 p.m. and he never complained. He was having fun playing with his cars and all the tissue paper!

What a handsome little man!

Christmas morning was spent with Jason's parents. We spent the morning opening gifts followed by brunch. Afterwards, we headed back to my mom's and opened gifts there as well. Kaleb was spoiled by his grandparents and uncles! We had Christmas supper with my mom and played a few games of Euchre afterwards.

Boxing Day was spent running to the grocery store and baking. We made homemade french onion soup as an appetizer for supper as well as Kaleb's cakes, one for his photo shoot and one for his birthday party. The day was finished by some more Euchre!

The next morning we packed up all our stuff again and headed to the photographer's for our Family/Kaleb's First Birthday photos. This where I had a mommy fail: we had put the cake in the porch the night before since the icing was melting from the heat of the kitchen. When we took it out the next morning, it was hard! And it hadn't thawed any when we got to the photographer's. Ooops. So we broke a couple pieces of icing for Kaleb, but after stuffing his mouth with a huge chunk of icing, he was no longer interested.

After we headed back to Jason's parents, where his mom and brother watched Kaleb while Jason and I headed back to town to have lunch and do shopping for his party. It was so weird to not have him with us. It was one of the first times ever. 

Friday was spent preparing for Kaleb's party and Saturday was the actual day! It went so smoothly, I was so relieved. I'll write all about in a new post tomorrow. 

All of his toys

The next morning, our week was over. We packed up (again), headed to my mom's for lunch and my brother's things (he hitched a ride with my aunt who had a little more room) and headed home. Kaleb and I slept most of the way, while daddy drank coffee and listed to sports. Were we ever glad to be home, until we realized the Christmas tree had to come down to get all of Kaleb's new toys in! Thankfully we were done within an hour, and his new toy storage was up and filled in another hour. 

It truly was a great week, but next year will definitely be more quiet. I can't wait. 

25 Days of Christmas

I am officially crazy.

I really enjoyed the 31 day challenge in October and was planning on doing a 'Capturing December Photo-a-day Challenge' that was posted in my mommy group. Then today, Randi over at Sowdering About in Seattle posted about doing a 25 Days of Christmas link up, so I've decided on doing both. Yep, officially crazy.

However, I don't want to bombard you all, so I'll be doing the photo challenge on my Facebook page and the 25 Days on here. You know, spread the love :)

So what's my plan for the 25 Days? I have no clue. The whole point of it is to do Christmas activities, crafts and baking for 25 days. So that's what I'll do.

I'm very excited for these challenges, Christmas is my favourite time of year and the fact that I've got a baby this year, makes it extra special!


Day 1: O Christmas Tree!
Day 2: Ice Ornaments - Update
Day 3: Christmas Service
Day 4: Christmas Lights 

Days Thirteen and Fourteen

I've come to realize there are not enough hours in a day and much less the weekend. My plan for the weekend was to begin some of the bigger de-cluttering projects. I never even got close. I did however spend quality time with my husband and child, and to me that is way more important. Don't get me wrong, we did a lot of small things, probably insignificant to outsiders, but a good thing in this house.

Our "helper"

Here is some things we did accomplish: dust the living room, organize the garage for winter, pick up dog poop in back yard, put away all groceries and shopping, clean kitchen (twice) after (two) full days of baking and cooking, bake cookies and muffins, carve pumpkins (and clean mess), do 3 loads of laundry (and put all clothes away), went swimming and most importantly, put Kaleb in a pumpkin.

Was there a de-cluttering project? No. Did we continue on this path of keeping our house clean? Yes.

I'm going to call this weekend a win.

Pumpkin baby.