Kansas Christmas

One of the greatest things about having two families to celebrate holidays with is that Christmas is twice as long. Since I tend to get a little blue after holidays and big events, I loved that I had a second Christmas to look forward to this year. Last week, we made our way to Kansas to celebrate with Matt's family.

On our way to good ol' AC, we stopped to visit some very good friends of ours. We've been friends for years, so it doesn't take long to settle into our hanging-out routine. Here are Matt and John, looking at something funny online, just like they always do.

Same old, same old - wait, what's that baby doing there?!!

Yep, we've added a new addition to our little friend-family! In November, John and Anna had a baby girl: Ruby Rose. We were very excited to meet the little one and hang out with old friends. It's funny that the visit was completely different, yet exactly the same.

Look at the happy family!

Little Ruby Rose.

After a fun visit, we were off again. We still had Christmas to celebrate!

Christmas tree!

We had a family gift exchange on New Year's Eve before heading off to a crazy NYE party! We got to visit MORE of our great friends, and welcome the New Year together.

Unfortunately, one of our group had to head home a little early and we didn't get to see her before she left. Fortunately, some awesome person invented Skype. The five/six of us played games and acted silly, which is pretty normal for us.

The boys dancing, skyping, and playing Settlers.

Finally, "Christmas Day" was here... again. We spent time with extended family who we don't see very often. Games were played, the kiddos opened presents, and LOTS of food was eaten. It was another great holiday.

Fun Christmas/New Year's!

And then it was time to head home. Matt went back to work this week and I started my student teaching. But we are about to leave our quiet life behind for the weekend as we embark upon a very exciting adventure. If we survive (just kidding... I hope), we will have lots of fun things to post next week. So keep your eye out...

Colorado Christmas

"But all along the Rockies you can feel it in the air
From Telluride to Boulder down below
The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow."

Unfortunately, there was no Colorado snow on Christmas this year. In fact, there was no Kansas snow when we went out for our Kansas Christmas either. But that didn't make our Christmas celebrations any less fun.

Our Colorado Christmas started with a big Christmas Eve gathering at our house. This year, my grandparents and aunt and uncle were able to come out from Kansas to join us. It was great to have everyone together, and it was nice to open our house for the festivities.

Presents under our tree.

I used the opportunity to practice some more of my recipes for my sister's upcoming wedding. Plus we had a couple of soups and lots of other goodies and snacks.

Lots of snacks, including my Irish Creme Brownies, Sea Salt Caramels, and Amaretto Chocolate Truffles

Relaxing and chatting.

Gathering for presents!

My family has the odd tradition of opening all of our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. I'm not entirely sure how the whole thing started, but I always remember opening presents when it was dark outside, so we must have been doing it this way for a while.

Presents!

We continued our new tradition of each adult getting one larger gift instead of multiple little ones. Matt got a new GPS to replace the one that was stolen from his car a couple of months ago, and I got awesome purple snow pants that I'm psyched to use next time we go skiing!

Though the present-giving was done after Christmas Eve, we still had a big Christmas diner on Christmas Day. We headed over to my folks' house to continue the Christmas craziness!

Sisters on Christmas.

The kiddos had fun with the new TV set up for their enjoyment... until the little one fell asleep.

Dinner time!

After dinner, Matt was nice enough to help with the dishes while my mom made our now traditional spiced whipped cream for the desserts.

We continued the family fun with relaxation and games after dinner. It was fun hanging out after all the stresses of the holiday were gone.

Fun on Christmas night.

And then, another Christmas was gone. Luckily, I didn't have too much post-holiday depression because we still had Kansas Christmas to look forward to!

December: The Shortest Month of the Year

I think December should be about ten days longer. Let's just shorten every other month by a day and add it all to December. Maybe then I'd have time to enjoy the shopping, baking, and party-going. Of course, I'm sure I'd find plenty of Christmas-y things to fill the extra days, making me just as exhausted come January.

This December was just as short as all the others. I feel like it was just a few days ago that Matt and I were waiting anxiously for the UPS package that held our fancy new Android phones. That was December 2nd -over three weeks ago!

Angry Birds!

Since that day, we've had birthdays to celebrate, multiple Christmas parties, a couple of ski days, lots of shopping, some crafting and baking, and Christmas Day itself! And now I'm tired. But it was a good month, with a lot of fun events.

A few weeks ago, my family gathered to celebrate some birthdays. My mom (November 27) and two of my nieces (November 25 and December 5) shared their party this year.

Presents and cake. As usual, most of the focus was on the little one. She turned two, and the older birthday girls let her have most of the attention.

But it was not just birthdays that we had to celebrate. December is always a month filled with holiday parties. I attended four work-related gatherings and Matt had a big work retreat/happy hour at our house.

Kids' art from our school special education parent night, and Matt's work party in our living room.

The multiple events left little time for one of my favorite things about the days leading up to Christmas: working on various crafts and projects. In fact, as soon as the weather starts to turn colder, I get in the mood to cross-stitch, sew, or make cards. Back in October, I spent many nights working on little felt zombies that I gave away at my Halloween party.

Rawr. A few of the zombies I made.

But once Halloween is over, I start thinking of ideas for Christmas cards, which I finished just in time to get them out before Christmas.

This year's Christmas card. The picture was taken by Dave when we went snowshoeing in February.

And just like that, December was almost over and Christmas was here. But more about that another time.