Hello there! Mike is much better at this than me, but since he works hard just to get our home videos on DVD, I guess you'll have to settle with web videos from me. Check out the Video page to see them. One is the girls' Church Christmas musical and the other is Christmas Eve opening presents from Gramma and Grampa Morrow.
Yes, it is true. I, even I, have been playing video games lately. Christmas brought with it some fun toys that our whole family has been enjoying. Mike and I got the girls some little handheld games called "muichiz". Kelby's is a dog and Tegan's is a cat. They have to play games and "feed" it to keep it happy. It has a cute little color screen and if that isn't enough fun, you can hook it up to a regular computer and your little guy enters a whole world on the web. You can walk around and meet other little characters. It is so much fun...that sometimes I play while the girls are sleeping! I go online and earn them creditz by playing games...then they can buy their little guys clothes and food. It is a great mother-daughter activity!
We also got what is called a Wii. A new Nintendo game system that just came out. It is so hilariously fun. You have a wireless "remote" that you use to control the game that has motion sensing. You move your whole body to play the games. It came with a bowling game that the whole family can play. Kelby and Tegan are quite good at it! We even have had our friends over to play. My body was so sore after the first few days.
Christmas was so wonderful. We were busy, but it was special and fun. We always feel like we over do it, but this year it was just perfect. The girls were very good and they LOVED everything they got. They played and played while they were out of school.
Now school is back in and we are getting back into another routine. Although, it looks like snow is coming again tonight. The weather here has been crazy, especially the wind. We even lost a small section of fence, but nothing Mike can't handle when it warms up.
What all did we do for the holidays? I just realized I didn't update much all last month. There were arts & crafts, events & activities, & family fun. I’ll post the pictures and that should be better than words right?
To celebrate with my friends, I had an “idea exchange party”. I made everyone bring a Christmas idea and I had three craft for everyone to do. There was too much food, but everyone had a good time.
Kelby had a disastrous field trip to the Senior Center. We walked about a mile with 2nd graders from the school to the local center where the kids sang carols as everyone was eating. It would have been great, but the wind was blowing the rain so hard into us that our legs were wet up to our buns! I had Anika and Tegan with me too and they didn’t appreciate it at all. I tried to tell all the kids it was an “adventure”, but really I shouldn’t have let us go. Weird thing was that between about 12 parents and 2 teachers, we didn’t have enough sense to turn around before we left the playground.
That same day was Kelby’s VIP day. Each student in her class to be the VIP for one week out of the year. She got to sit up in front of the class and show off her stuff and answer their questions. I was surprised at how much she enjoyed being the center of attention. She had me bring in our dog Hercules, and she brought her collection of “Cars” stuff. The kids were impressed with her talking McQueen racecar. She had been waiting all year for her moment.
One day the girls made gingerbread men with Gramma Debbie and the cousins. The girls and I did lots of other things for our advent calendar too like a Christmas tea party, baked cookies, made thank you cards and made a gingerbread house. All the fun traditions are really what I love about the Christmas season. We had our annual ornament party this year. The kids made their gifts and we delivered them to the retirement home. This time the kids asked if they could sing too. The twelve or so kids we had were impressively in tune. We also made it to the “Lights of Christmas” again. I enjoy that evening so much because I don’t have to do any work, but just get to enjoy!
You are right Mom, the girls did really enjoy opening the package you sent and putting all those gifts under the tree. They appreciated all the gifts everyone sent! Gigi, they really love the sweaters you guys sent. They are perfect and they wear them almost everyday! We miss all you guys that don’t get to be here with us on Christmas, but we love you and were thinking about you!
We got to go sledding on Christmas Eve this year. Remember, there was no snow on the mountain last year that day. This time all the cousins came up too. It really started snowing on us while we were up there, but it was fun. Exhausting, but fun! We came home and after a nap, enjoyed a fondue dinner (well, I enjoyed the dinner even if no one else quite appreciated it), then opened presents from all the Morrows. Since the girls are a little older now we decided to try the Christmas Eve service at church. That was always one of my favorite things growing up. Though our church’s service is a little more flamboyant than most Christmas Eve services, it still served the purpose of drawing our attention back to the real reason we celebrate. I hope we get to do that every year from now on.
Those sleepy girls crashed right away when we got home, only to wake up bright and early the next morning. We opened Santa’s presents right away and then had our Christmas breakfast. Though we made them take the present opening slower this year, they didn’t seem to mind. They played with each thing as we went. Mike and I really enjoyed our morning.
When we were done, we went over to Debbie and George’s to spend the rest of the day with the cousins, open more presents, and eat too much! We played a little poker, but didn’t win the can of “Silly String” we were betting on!
My favorite day of the Christmas holiday is the day after Christmas. That was the day we relaxed and did nothing, but play with our new toys. I even took a hot bath that day. We got to eat up all the yummy leftovers and drink lattes from the new espresso machine Mike got me!
The next week was pretty relaxing. I tried my hardest not to do anything…except play with the girls and their online pet game! Then one day as I was shopping for cheap Christmas wrapping paper, I unexpectedly stumbled upon the Wii Nintendo Game, which I mentioned earlier, on the store shelf that had been impossible to find before Christmas. Since then, we’ve been playing that together as a family.
Then I had my annual Prime Rib dinner on New Year’s Day. We postpone Anika’s birthday from December 28th until then and make it special. She doesn’t seem to mind. She is now three years old (and potty trained I might add)! The family came over for dinner, cake, and bowling!
That pretty much rounds out what we have been up to. I hope you’ll forgive me for not updating until now. I guess we’ve been pretty busy…in a good way…enjoying each other, relaxing, and loving on others. I can only hope your holidays were as good as ours.
This is how we roll… Summer has been full of studying for me, working for Mike, Kelby, and Tegan, and hanging out for Anika! We have spent ...
