Two Birthdays and Christmas

Our last three weeks have been full of events.  Our season of celebrating starts off with JJ's birthday.  She turned four this year.  Last summer I picked up some Tinkerbell birthday decorations at a garage sale and since then she has been wanting a Tinkerbell birthday with Rapunzel gifts.  I worried about making a Tinkerbell cake.  I have picked up tricks here and there the last few years as I try to make requested cakes for the kids but I am far from professional and having to do facial features leads me to anxiety.  Here's how the cake turned out.

So much for hiding the kids identities on line. 

We had some friends over for pizza and cake and ice cream.  She was excited to see the decorations and loved receiving all of her gifts but especially a Rapunzel wig.  She also got a toy washing machine she had been asking for.  Grandma got her a Rapunzel outfit for Fluffy as well.

Four days later it was Christmas Eve.  We spent the day at home relaxing, packing, baking, and then went to the Christmas Eve service at Church followed by dinner with new friends.

Sunday we woke to three excited children. (Actually, they came in and stared at us for awhile not saying anything.)  We opened gifts and tried a new recipe for french toast in the crock pot.

Reading the Christmas story.  I thought this shot was too cute.

JJ's favorite gift from Grandpa and Grandma.

JD's something you want.

JJ's something you want was a pillow pet and bubble bath.

JR's something you want was a Wii Wipe Out game.
It has been enjoyed by everyone and has gotten a lot of use already.

Here they are with their "something to read".

We are fortunate to get lots of clothes handed down to our kids by friends and family.  I was excited that we have been given sports coats just the right size for each of the boys this year.  I had them cleaned and made the boys save them for Christmas morning.  They both like to dress up so they liked having them too.  I was hoping for snowy pictures of the kids in their Christmas finery.  Maybe in a few weeks we can try again.

After lunch we had a fabulous Christmas dinner at McDonald's.  (Dairy Queen for Easter and now McDonald's for Christmas, we are live-in it up for the holidays aren't we.) I did not want a mess or leftovers before we left town.  We went home, packed up, and headed for Michigan.  We made it around Chicago and  into Indiana before stopping for the night.  We arrived in Michigan on Monday afternoon.

That evening we again celebrated JJ's birthday with Grandma Pointer and Miss Margaret and her exchange student from Germany.  JJ opened the last of her birthday gifts, a princess scooter.  She loves riding it all over the house.  The kids opened their Christmas gifts from Miss Margaret too.  It was a nice evening.

On Tuesday JD spent the day with his best buddies from the third grade.  The little ones stayed with Grandma.  Erin and I signed final papers for selling the Michigan house, HURRAH!!  We went to Kroger so I could use all of my coupons at double their value.  We got some good deals.  We also made sure to get a Halo Burger while in town.  Yum, we miss having one close. We did not order shakes though which was a bummer but  it was late and we wanted to save room for supper.

The rest of the week was a whirl wind of catching up with friends and having a day for family Christmas with Erin's Mom, and his Sister and family.  We had so much fun playing games and talking and just hanging out.  We are thankful for all the hospitality.  It is hard to fit six months worth of visiting into a week but I think we did a fairly good job.

On New Years Eve we spent our last evening with Erin's mom and it went similar to our first as we celebrated JR's birthday with cake and gifts from Grandma.  We packed up the car and spent Sunday morning with our Bristol Road Church family followed by a lovely Chinese dinner at one of our favorite spots before heading back to Minnesota.  We made it to Madison, Wisconsin before stopping for the night and again got home by Monday afternoon.  The boys and Erin went back to school and work on Tuesday.

Last night was the end of our festive season.  It ends for us with JR's birthday.  He turned seven this year.  He wanted a Build a Bear birthday so I made his cake with their logo a little simplified.  He informed me the night before that he couldn't wait to see his decorations so I quickly threw something together with crepe paper and balloons. (I'm so glad I picked up the red after Christmas).

We will do a date with just Mommy, Daddy, and JR on Saturday where he will go to the store and build a new friend, but for his birthday we had dinner as a family. JR wanted hamburgers and he wanted to do dinner by candle light so that's what he got.  I'm glad the flash on the camera did so well  capturing photos in the dim light of supper.

 JR opened one last gift from Grandma Pointer and gifts from Grandpa and Grandma Walter to finish off the evenings festivities.

I guess technically we are not finished until we do our date on Saturday but that will be done soon enough.  It is nice to finally feel like the house is back in order.  We are doing some other special things this month which I hope to write about later.