Merry Christmas!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas week!  We started our pre-Christmas week with a nasty flu bug - yeah!  I want to be positive so I will say that I lost a few pounds just in time to enjoy some treats this weekend!  The kids bounced back amazingly well but it dragged me down for half the week!  Augh!

By Thursday we were ready to get out of the house so we made a visit to the Toledo Art Museum!  We love the Toledo Art Museum - mostly cause it is another fabulous free thing to do in Toledo!!After some play time in the Family Center (I love taking my kids here because they can paint, & paint, & paint - and the mess stays there) Marin, Maxwell & I wandered through the museum looking for paintings of Baby Jesus - we found a lot of them.   Morgan & Manhattan went through on their own so they could really look at everything!  It was fun!

Thursday evening we grabbed some extra kids (Drew & Reed) and met up with some friends (Empies & Van Durens) for 2011 MINIVAN EXPRESS!  This is an event that will become a tradition!  We gathered the kids in pjs, enjoyed hot cocoa & cookies, and with our golden tickets in hand we traveled to some of the crazy lite houses in town!  You know the kind - the music matches the lights merriment!  At every stop the kids were singing along and cracking us up!  It was a lot of fun - something to put on the list of fun Christmas stuff to do!  Note:  the matching pjs - I could not resist - any reason to make the kids more adorable and crazy I will go for it!  Maxwell was most interested in his pjs - has worn them every night since!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Saturday evening we had the Empies over for Christmas Eve dinner!  Yes, the kids donned their matching pjs and Lindsey and I had matching fancy pj pants (yep - they are fleece black pants - we bought them from the same place :)  The men were not interested in getting into the dressy up thing so they stuck with jeans - borring!  Anyways - after a traditional Ethington Christmas Eve dinner of Grilled soft tacos and tons of chips - Lindsey gave the kids the ultimate pj party gift!  Yep - she is my crafty friend that thinks she is not crafty but like Morgan said - "she is the Martha Stewart of Toledo".  She is my favorite kind of crafty person - useful crafty items that are adorable!  She made each kid a pillowcase with a special pocket in - for a book & a stuffed animal and she had their names on them - I don't think I got any great pictures of them - but they are so cute!  My kids went wild for them and put them right on their pillows!  Thanks Lindsey - you are great! 

They also brought this game - something about tossing pigs - loved it!  It is small enough to throw in your purse and even the little kids could play it!  I love easy games that take no real skill - even though I found there must be some skill needed for the game because I was horrid at it and never really got any points - oh, it was called PASS THE PIG.  I am always looking for games that we can play - all of us from Maxwell on up!  It was fun and definitely silly - big points there!

Here is a shot of the kids in their matching pjs - it was the best we could do!  

Maxwell loves Mason so as soon as he was set into the group Maxwell was too distracted!  Manhattan was a great spot playing along even with all the kids being so much younger!  :)

Nathan, Maxwell, Manhattan holding Mason, Marin, and Felicity!  

After everyone left we took the time to end the day with another tradition - reading the Christmas story, watching The Nativity video and expressing how we feel about this time of year!  I am really enjoying the wisdom that my children share as they get older.  Marin & Manhattan both say the kindest and thoughtful things especially when they feel the spirit.  We tried very hard to make sure that Maxwell could identify the people in the nativity - he loves babies so he was right on with Mary and Baby Jesus this year!

CHRISTMAS DAY

Yeah!  All the planning, working, cleaning, wrapping, and organized - torn apart in a little more than an hour.  All right not totally true - pretty darn close though!  We had a rough night with sleepless children but nevertheless we were up and sparkly at 6:30 am!  

Marin had gotten up during the night - she had some leg cramps but was not to miserable to stop and check out if Santa was here.  She noticed "canoes" in our living room!  From the moment she woke up all she could talk about was how she "peeked" and saw canoes - "what was Santa thinking?" "We do not have room for canoes in our house" "I guess we could take them to Pokagon with us"  "There is two of them and they are really big".  All the while I am trying to get her to go to the bathroom so we can open the door and see if Santa came - she was very concerned but could not just let it go!

So were there canoes - has Santa lost his mind and left canoes for the Ethingtons?  We opened the door and quickly noticed that they were not canoes but two new sleds propped up along the edge of the couch!  Whew!

Everyone was excited by their Christmas surprises - Thank you Santa!  First we have to say thank you for the yummy cereal - we love that Santa brings "fancy" cereal to us on Christmas Eve.  Some of the family favorites were the new toothbrushes, yummy chocolate oranges, and the super really HUGE packages of licorice - perfect for road trips!  Marin loves her LeapPad tablet, Maxwell is in love with her Little People Zoo, & Manhattan was shocked that she received a IPOD Touch.  Once again cementing the deal that Santa is real because as she puts it, "there is no way you guys could afford this ("fancy cereal, huge licorice, toys, etc)  - Santa has to be real!"  Love it!  That is a whole story in itself for a couple years from now - when will the credit come in the right direction!! 

I feel if we have opened the flood gates with the techie toys for the kids but they love them.  We are working on how much time to play them and when it is time to do other things.  I need to invest in some headphones for Marin - the noise drives me a little nuts!  Right now Marin is on a quiet time break, she is in her bedroom - doing something besides the LeapPad.  Between that and Manhattan hanging out with her bff, Maxwell napping - I have been able to take a  little while of quiet to type this up!

I feel like we did not take a lot of pictures this year but here is the traditional "looking crazy & wild" on Christmas morning shot - we are so cute!

Anyways - the day was spent at church, playing with the new toys, and having our traditional breakfast "as dinner" with our good friend MJ before Morgan headed off the work.  I know someone has to work but we sure do miss him when he is gone!

Hope you all had a great Christmas!  We are looking forward to a week of hanging out with my kids - I am hoping to visit the Science Center, maybe some swimming, the zoo for the Lights Before Christmas, and even a trip to the skating rink (can you tell the kids have been planning the week out!)  

We promised them that they would get to stay up for New Year's Eve so we will be planning some party games for that night!