Christmas Day

We spent the first part of Christmas morning opening presents with just the four of us at our house. Everyone truly enjoyed all of their gifts. 

When he had finished opening presents, we headed to my parents' for more presents and fun!

After a delicious brunch, we left Olivia at my parents' house so she could enjoy some more time visiting with them and my sister and headed home to put Natalie down for a nap. Yusaku and I used the kid-free time to start cooking and cleaning in preparation for hosting Christmas dinner a few hours later.

Before dinner, we exchanged gifts with Yuskau's parents. Olivia got a beautiful handmade doll crib that Yusaku's dad made and Nayaie got a fun slide.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we went to an afternoon mass with my family, followed by dinner at my parent's house as usual.

After dinner, we headed home to do all of our Christmas Eve rituals: the kids opened new matching Christmas pjs, we hung our stockings, and set out milk and cookies for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph. Before putting the kids to bed, we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. I love being able to recreate traditions for my own kids that I enjoyed growing up.

December phone pics

Boonshoft fun

Woodland Lights

enjoying a bubble bath - one of their advent calendar activities

playing with colored bubbles

at Oakwood's Winter Festival on a horse drawn carriage ride
(despite the look on Olivia's face, she did have fun!)

enjoying the headpieces Aunt Honey sent them

decorating their gingerbread house

Christmas cookie making photos below :)

sister love!

November phone pics

Thanksgiving weekend

We started our Thanksgiving with a nice relaxing morning at home, lounging around in pj's and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We prepared some of the side dishes for dinner and my sister came over and hung out with us for a bit.Yusaku's parents hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year and we had a great time! Yosuke, Manami, and two couple friends of theirs, one of whom has a baby, all came in from New York. All total, including kids, there were 17 of us!

Since Yosuke and Manami are expecting a little girl in March, we hosted a baby shower for them at our house on Saturday before they headed back to New York. We had all the same guests that had been at Thanksgiving. After a delicious brunch of quiche and muffins from Big Sky, we played some pretty funny shower games (like guessing baby food flavors and which types of candy bars were melted in diapers) and they opened a few presents. I think everyone had a good time!

Saturday night, we got together with Leslee, Jon, Quinn, and Connor at my parents' house. It was great getting to catch up with them. Sarah, Leslee, and I entertained ourselves by recreating some old photos we found of ourselves. It was pretty funny!