The Final Christmas Post

This year, in the spirit of new holiday traditions, we went to Houston to spend the week with Lexi and Will and the girls for Christmas (Merry Christmas to Lexi and Will!  :)).  I will say that I have to give them credit -while their house is plenty big enough to host all of us - it is still a lot to take on.  But, they did a great job and we had an excellent time. 

We got into Houston early enough in the afternoon so that the kids could run around (in the gorgeous 75 degree weather!) and burn off some steam and of course, my favorite - have dinner outside!

 

 

The following day was Christmas Eve.  Santa spent most of the day wrapping presents and then that night, it was off to the children's service at the church at Annabel's school.  We thought that it would be a cute thing to take the kids to and really, how long could a children's service last?  Um.....try 2.5 hours??????????????????  Seriously?  I mean, really - is there a need to sing every single one of the 14 verses of every Christmas carol?  Don't get me wrong - I was embracing the opportunity for these pipes to be used again and I do love myself a good Christmas carol, but wow.  It was a bit crazy. 

Surprisingly enough, all kids were great.  However, the parents were getting antsy and figured the kids would soon, so needless to say, we waited until communion, paid the $$ and hightailed it out of there.  Before heading home, we took advantage of the nice night and the playground...

That night, we had a nice dinner at home and then drove around the Heights where everyone had their houses decorated - like, ridiculously decorated.  It was pretty crazy.  Unfortunately, my camera didn't do the lights justice, so I don't have any pictures.  You'll just have to trust me on this one. 

When we got home, we put out snacks for Santa and the food for the reindeer that Avery had made in school

and actually managed to get the kids down to bed early enough for Santa to come and eat the food and leave stockings and presents...

As you can imagine, Christmas morning was a bit chaotic with 1 5-year-old who was busy making sure she got the exact same number of presents as everyone else, 2 3-year-olds that were perfectly content playing with just the first present opened and still didn't quite get the concept and then a 1.5-year-old who really just wanted to continuously play with whatever her sister got and as a result, really piss her sister off.  But, we all lived and the kids loved their gifts.

We kind of lolly gagged the rest of the day and then finished up making dinner right as the electricity went out!  I swear - the Hollands are cursed - power outages follow us.  ANYWAY...thankfully the men were able to do the manly thing and use their head lamps (note my father's hat that was actually a Christmas gift from William this year - quite good timing!).  Also thankful that dinner was actually pretty much done at that point and it just forced us to have Christmas dinner via candlelight, which was very nice.

The rest of the week was spent with fun activities like....

Going to the aquarium...

 

Taking moonlight rides on our new scooters that we got from Opa and Grandma for Christmas...

 

 

Going to the zoo.  Clearly Houston has a weird fetish with providing plastic tubes for kids to look through (see aquarium pics above) and clearly our kids took advantage...

 

 

Going to the Nutcracker.  This was just a girls' day out with Lexi, Annabel, Avery and I.  The girls did great and really got pretty into it!  Granted, Annabel asked a couple of times when we were going to go home and nearly jumped off of the balcony in front of us, but other than that, it was a lovely performance..

 

 

 

Catching up with Jess and Amy (one of my favorite traditions when coming to Houston).  As always, it was like we just saw each other yesterday. 

 

 

Going to the children's museum, which I'll be honest - was a lot of fun and I do have some cute pictures, but they are on my other camera and at this rate, if I wait to download those and post them, it will be Christmas 2013 before I get this post up.  Not to mention, I'm sure you have had enough pictures at this point, anyway.

 

 

Building Pizzas to be cooked on the Big Green Egg by Uncle Will...

 

 

And, just generally being silly and having fun with family....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, it was a great Christmas!  Thanks again, Lexi and Will for hosting!

Christmas, Part Deux

The rest of December was filled with more of our traditional holiday celebrations and then a new tradition - Christmas in Texas! 

Grammy once again took us to tea at the mansion.  As always, it was a really cute event and Avery had a great time. The only problem?  For whatever reason, one of the years, we went into the gift shop after the tea and she got something small.  So, now?  She thinks that she can go to the gift shop every time and get something.  I mean, there was nothing that she even liked in the shop, yet, she insisted on buying something (yes, I realize there is a much larger issue that we will have to deal with at some point here).  So, I stuck to my word and said no and wow - somebody threw a bit of a hissy fit.  Even Grammy got frustrated with her and that is saying something!  I have to attribute some of this to being tired from a full day of school, but still...needless to say, we had a little chat in the car on the way home and this behavior better not happen again at the tea or the 2012 tea may be the last she sees of this!

We celebrated with Josh's side of the family on the Saturday before Christmas and then left for our big trip to Houston on Sunday.  And, in true Holland fashion, Avery woke up on Saturday morning with strep throat.  Awesome.  Luckily, we got her into the see the doctor immediately on Saturday morning, so we started her on antibiotics right away.  Unfortunately, she wasn't 100% at Grammy and Grampy's, but she was a trooper and hung in there enough to celebrate a bit and of course, to open some presents...

 Al Man got his ditch digger that he had been asking for for about 3 months prior to Christmas and loved it...

And, the coolest part of the night?  Avery had a Santa's workshop at school where she could buy 2 presents for anyone she wanted.  So, we sent her to school with $20 and she came home to tell us that she bought a present for Alex, for Mommy and since she could only buy for 2 people, Daddy's present was the change from the $20 that she didn't spend.  Ha!  Anyway - she was SO proud of the present that she got for me and could hardly wait until Christmas so that I could open it.  I have to say - I am pretty impressed that a 5-year-old could keep a secret for that long, but she did.  So, of course, the first thing we did when we got to Grammy and Grampy's was open my present....

 It was a friendship bracelet - complete with 3 charms - "Special," "Friends Forever," and "Love." I actually wear it quite frequently and will cherish it forever. 

As always, I've been a bit long winded, so as it turns out, there will be a Christmas, Part 3, as I can't very well fit an entire week of Texas in this posting.  Stay tuned!  And, then?  Back to present day (mostly)...