Cleaning up Christmas

Turns out, cleaning up and putting away Christmas is a lot harder with a toddler.  Just because you put all the Christmas tree ornaments in a box does not mean they'll stay there.

She played with those pretty much all day long.  And we let her because it was easier than trying to find a place to hide them so she wouldn't see them and cry for them.  And they were plastic.  No harm, right?  Ehhh… not until I stepped on one and broke it.  It then got moved to our bathroom sink with the door closed.  Haha.  But really, it was a sad day.  I really enjoyed the feeling of Christmas this year around my house.

Welcome home!

We got home from Island Park and found our house at 51 degrees.  We turned up the furnace while we unloaded the car and thought that'd be sufficient.  It wasn't.  Turns out, our furnace wouldn't turn on.  So we bundled up tightly and went to sleep.  When we woke up, it was 46 degrees.

BRRRR!!!!!!!

It was so cold.  We called the furnace guys and got an appointment for later that day.  Meanwhile, we all wrapped up in blankets.  See?

Turns out, the flame ignitor cracked while we were in Island Park.  Yipes!  Thank goodness for savings!  Cuz turns out, those things are expensive!  Luckily, within a few hours, we were walking around in short sleeves again.

post-Christmas Island Park

Christmas at Island Park is not all about Christmas day.  Oh no.  It's about a week in a cabin surrounded by snow and having a bunch of new games that we got for Christmas to play all week.  Now we get the few misc. pictures I took for the rest of the week.

Kessa liked the bowl on her head better than in front of her.

We like games.  Unfortunately, most of our games didn't allow for all of us to play.  Luckily, our table was big enough for two games.  Please ignore Nick's pretend pouty face.  He was probably beating all of us.  (Or at least making us think he was.) 

Check out those icicles!  They made me SO HAPPY.  My favorite was the one directly to the right of the door, and the far left one in front of the window.

And here's the view looking out the window. 

Btw, that car had been completely scraped of snow about a day or two prior.

< /hiatus >

For you non-nerdy folks, the title of this post means that we're at the end of the hiatus.  Turns out my announced hiatus was remarkably shorter than my typical space between blogging.  We decided to just pay $5 and upgrade to 20 GB of space.  We should be good for awhile.

And now… back to playing catch up!

Snowmobiling

There was a snowmobiling park in Island Park this year.  (Kind of like a skate park for snowmobiles.)  Nick especially was pretty crazy on it, but Jessa and Shawn had some fun on it, too.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

They got me out on one long ride this year.  

BJ liked the way the snow sat on the Chevron sign. 

Stockton and Jessa 

Nick 

Temporary Hiatus

Well folks, we ran out of free storage space on our blog.  Too many pictures, I guess!  So until we figure out what we're gonna do, I'll probably be on a blogging hiatus.  (Which you're all probably grateful for, after the last 9 blogs today.)  Which is actually fine, right now, since Kessa just woke up from her nap and wants my attention.  But is really a shame since I was finally getting caught up.  Alas.  Another day, then.

Toodles!

Christmas morning

And now… the Christmas morning gifts!  (Picture overload alert.  Thanks, Jessa, for all the pictures!)

Kessa was freezing while drinking her bottle.  So we wrapped up in a blanket.  (That's a new necklace for me, btw.  Which, sadly, Kessa just broke while flailing about trying to get out of bedtime.  [sigh]  I think I can fix it.)

Here is Kessa's new xylophone.  It's fantastically out of tune.  I really should take a quick video so you can hear for yourself.  We considered taking it back, but Kessa walked around with the box for days, so we finally caved and just opened it.

I'm excited about this toy. It's like all the ones you find in doctor's office waiting rooms. 

Nick was excited about… pretty much everything he got. 

Teresa wants to be like Nick.  :) 

Here's one of BJ's new shirts.  I'm personally loving the price tag.  :) 

Another of Kessa's new toys.  A shape sorting ball!  She loves this ball.  And she's getting really good at it. It helps her learn shapes, numbers and colors.  It's great. (Also, those are her new jammies for Christmas.  But she was asleep when we opened them the night before.)

BJ got Dominion.  (It's a game.  That's hard to explain.  It's like a board game played with cards.)  It is amazing.  It is my new favorite game.  I want everyone to learn it.  EVERYONE.  So come invite yourself over for a game night.  I'm serious.  (Also, Jalin, BJ says we can play online.  So we'll have to figure it out and maybe do it instead of TTR for awhile.) 

Kessa also got a little people play house.  She loves it, too.  Especially since it makes noises when she pushes buttons.  And she likes to rock the people to sleep in the bassinet.  And make them all sit in their chairs. 

Here is most of Kessa's loot. 

I got a box with random kitchen items (hooray!) and …. 

… Veggie Tales!  I was very excited.  If you couldn't tell. 

Also, Kessa now loves them as much as I do.

But I don't love getting the songs stuck in my head all day.

We also got all the different Small World expansion packs.  Which we are excited for. 

And Wii Sports Resort.  (Because we love our Wii.  Also, archery is awesome.  And wakeboarding.)

(We also got Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, but it's not pictured.) 

All us kids chipped in to get the parents a new painting for their family room.  We couldn't decide what they would like, so we printed off pictures of our favorites and gave them gift cards. 

Teresa gave Kessa new headbands, which she wears all the time.  She'll find one on the floor and bring it to us then pat her head.  (Which is the sign for hat.) 

Kessa reaching into her stocking to pull out...

… a wallet!  It's filled with all our used up gift cards and fake credit cards we get in the mail.  The hope is that she'll pull them all out of her wallet instead of ours.  So far, it's not working. 

This is Nick's stocking that Nana made.  He realized this year that it would probably fit him.  So he tried it on.  Lo and behold… it fit perfectly.