Adventures in the 'Burgh: Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday with my parents. They were in town for 10 days and we enjoyed a really nice relaxing, low key visit. We did a lot of puzzles, including a ridiculously hard 1000 piece one I got at Goodwill for $1. I turns out you get what you pay for because it was missing at least 25 pieces. We worked on that bugger for days before giving up. We got almost all of it done, but, we just couldn't take it any more. Puzzle - 1. Puzzle doers - 0. We played a lot of games, tackled more puzzles, ate, baked cookies and just spent time together.

My mom and I took the kids to see the Nutcracker downtown at the Benedum Center. It's one of our favorites and a fun holiday tradition. The show was at noon and we left the house at 10am in anticipation of traffic. I packed lunch for us not knowing if we'd need to eat (and Wyatt's gluten free diet can be tricky dining out). Plus I figured food would keep everyone happy during the show so I packed a lot. We ended up eating a full on picnic spread in our seats. We're sorry to the people in front of us that had to smell our ham sandwiches. Dang, these kids can eat. Hadley made it 3/4 of the way through act II before she announced "OK. We've had enough of these dancers now." but the rest of us enjoyed it.

We enjoyed a nice Christmas eve service at church. It was a family service so everyone participated. There was a small pageant and the kids were invited to join in. Since they didn't have actual parts, they were assigned to be cows. Tate wandered around at the altar and rolled around on the floor, but no one seemed to notice. Wyatt and Hadley sat quietly through the entire story up at the front with the other kids. The service finished with everyone singing Silent Night in a big circle, with candles lit. It's so beautiful and my favorite part of Christmas Eve service. We went home, sprinkled our reindeer food on the lawn, put out our Santa cookies and tried to wind down for the night. The kids were pretty pumped up but they managed to fall asleep.

As usual, everyone was up bright and early. We managed to hold them off for a little bit until my parents could get downstairs. Still, I think they were tearing into presents by 7am. They were more interested in the presents than the stockings, which surprised me because the stocking was always my favorite. Tate didn't care about his stocking at all. We found it later in the morning, still completely filled, so Hadley opened it for him. Everyone seemed happy with their loot and no one complained about not getting anything. Tate was so enthralled with his car ramp, that is all he played. We quickly grabbed the rest of his still wrapped gifts and stashed them in the basement to save for his birthday. Wyatt got some building toys and mostly electronics (Nintendo and xbox games). Hadley got a ton of crafts and coloring items, which she loves. She also got roller skates, which thrilled her. She kept wanting us to go down in the basement to help her practice. We made her wear her bike helmet and used the child sized walker I bought at Goodwill for support. Her favorite gift was probably the cake pop maker. We had to test it out the next day. The cake pops were incredibly easy to make and pretty good considering they were gluten free. She had fun making them pretty. We had a nice relaxing day, everyone busy with their new toys. We ate, drank, hung out, just enjoyed the day together - as it should be. Merry Christmas!