Coming out of Hibernation

Happy New Year!  I have come back from the 19th century, having lived the past two and a half weeks without our laptop while it was being fixed...something about a broken fan, thankfully covered under warranty, which meant sending it to headquarters.  I can now function - back to operating our budget on Quicken, writing my stories on an actual computer, versus the tablet that had this fascination of eating my stories, and most importantly, back to updating my blog!

Much has happened...I shall give a brief review of the last several weeks in pictorial format:

We had our traditional making of gingerbread houses with graham crackers.  Of all the traditions we have at Christmas time, this is perhaps the most beloved by all the family members.

 

 The final products:

 

Unbeknownst to me, Megan headed upstairs with her frosting bag and had a little fun decorating her
closet doors.  Yum.  Good thing she's good at cleaning up too :)

The first day the girls had out of school, we made a boat-load of treats to share with all of our new neighbors. 

Christmas Eve, we made our usual trek out to see the Christmas lights at Layton Park.

Christmas morning was heavenly.  We made the girls wait until Natalie was awake before they were allowed to wake us up (Natalie is our latest morning sleeper).  Lucky for us, Natalie and Megan didn't wake up until 7:30 a.m.!  Not so lucky for Kim and Alicia, who hung out in the den watching Netflix on the tablet and kindle beginning at 5:30 a.m.!

By the way, if you are wondering about the picture quality, we fiddled with the new camera over the holiday, but we are still learning, so until then, I am still using our old camera.

This is perhaps our best Christmas tradition to date.  Each of the girls is in charge of one of their sisters, rotating each year.  They are required to hand-make something in the $5 or less range.  They spent several weeks planning what they were going to do, and then the next couple of weeks making their projects.  I love watching them learn how to serve one another in this manner - truly what Christmas is all about.

Above, you'll see the penguin Alicia sewed for Megan.  She actually ended up making one for each of her other sisters too. Alicia spent many hours locked in the den secretly working on them.

Kimberly spent a weekend up at Grandma Rimington's house where she made this quilt for Natalie to use with her dolls, along with a sewn Barbie dress to go with it.

Natalie and Megan (with the help of their mother, and the idea from Marian), made these darling bubble gum jars.

 

Kimberly and Alicia both got bows from Santa. John got back into archery last year having purchased a used bow, and hasn't had much of a chance to pursue it, but the girls have been admiring his bow and desperately wanted one of their own for Christmas. 

 

He set up an archery range in the backyard and the girls have been having a blast, spending hours out there with John. Those several acres behind our property line comes in real handy.  We've only lost two bows into the no-man's land!  

 

Here they all go...

(John has a left-handed bow)
 

We had Christmas dinner at our house with John's parents and his twin siblings. 

 

New Year's Eve, we had our traditional Monopoly game night and fun snacks with our girls and some of their friends.  

 

Afterwards, we headed out to a party with some old friend to ring in the new year.

A fun holiday indeed.