Christmas Break

What a great holiday weekend we had!

Brian and I are both doing some traveling in January, so we took it easy on ourselves for under the tree presents...we limited ourselves to a waffle maker and a very inexpensive BluRay player, and only the waffle maker made it under the tree.

Miss Nora, on the other hand, had several gifts -- mostly from us and Bestema, who spoiled her with a play stove and cooking tools. We got her a set of food items to go with it, and a few things for her train set and Sesame Street friends collection.

Christmas Day we went over to Jeff & Judy's house, where all available family gathered. It was SO neat -- a very relaxing day -- and a very low key Christmas in terms of presents.

It's amazing to me how there can be so MANY presents under a tree (which is all but inevitable when you have 27 people gathering for Christmas), but this year we had "only" 15 people, and many of us only got a present for the kids, still others like Peter chose to write us each a personal note about what makes us special (nothing quite gives you a good lump in your throat like that!) and Jeremy & Stephanie gave money in our names to a charitable organization that helps people around the world become self-sufficient.

We took Nora our for a walk, joining other family on a walk in the countryside near the railroad tracks, where Nora announced "CHOO CHOO!"

All in all, it was amazing day.

The rest of this Christmas Break has been spent doing lots of practical and fun things around the house...I have been painting the bathroom from what was supposed to be a spa-like mango color (which turned out more like ORANGE ORANGE) to a good, old-fashioned elementary school boy's bathroom blue color, which strangely enough, seems MUCH more relaxing...

I have managed in the last couple of nights, to saw the moulding after Nora went down, then put it up this afternoon while I let TV babysit her (shoot me now, or just hand me that dang Mother of The Year Award), and tonight after she went to bed, I painted it.

I have a lot more to do this break, but dang, this was a BIG project, and one I am especially proud of...High Five!