Christmas Review

Happy New Year!! I hope you had a great Christmas holiday with your loved ones. We did! Well, besides the fever virus the kids passed around then sent back to Bham with two family members.  Have you got it yet? Chances are- you will. But we're all healthy again by the start of the New Year, and feeling well rested and grateful for some awesome family time.
There is LOTS to review. As usual, I'm way behind in blogging. But I'm ok with that bc of the awesome family time mentioned above. It was worth it. But, in an effort to get it all documented (as this IS our family photo album!), I'll do several postdated posts, and release them one at a time. That usually seems to work! ;)

Since this is just the first one (and I'm not really sure where to start), I'll just post a bunch of random pictures from our Christmas month from my phone- pictures from my phone often get stuck in limbo, and never get posted, so this will be a good way to share some of them. (Unless you see them on Facebook- those ones may be repeats!) But- they are phone photos- even though they are from the mighty iPhone, the quality is not always the best! ;)

Christmas- shaped chocolate chip pancakes!
If you leave the griddle on low temp (200-225) the plastic cookie cutters seem to do fine. 

I did a bunch of baking for Georgia's school bake sale- these "Homemade peppermint oreos" were really delicious- and took forever to make! I was grateful when my sweet hubby bought some back for me to eat at the sale!
(idea from Jen Sellers; recipe from Our Best Bites)

Lincoln's favorite thing about his Polar Express day at preschool- "eating the marshmallows"!

One of the best parts about our break has been Daddy's break- from school! We were all excited when his grueling fall semester ended- with 2 A's, might I add!!- and we're still enjoying our family weekends till he starts back the next semester in late January.

Lincoln's school Christmas show was adorable!! His class did a song about the Three Kings- hence the awesome crown!

Making "Aunt Pattie Christmas cookies"- with Aunt Pattie, Grammie and Aunt Laura!

Aren't they festive?! We won't mention a particularly special purple/pink cookie that someone made for  a special little someone then a big daddy someone accidentally gobbled it up!! ;)

Lincoln's class party- he's enjoying these yummy and cute reindeer donuts! And I had to share his answer to "Why do we celebrate Christmas"- "Because God is the light and the shepherds celebrate Christmas"- something is sinking in!!

For Georgia's last day and party, they had a pajama day and watched "Santa Paws"- Bernie dog got to come along and enjoy the movie!

One night we went back out to Horsepower for Kids, the farm Lincoln's class went to for their field trip, for their live Nativity. It was really great! It was a chilly night, but we bundled up and really enjoyed the wagon ride thru the Nativity performance, all the animals to see and pet, and the slide- of course! Santa was there, and these ended up being our only pictures with Santa this year, so I had to post them, even though they're not sitting together.  You can see Rosemary was not thrilled!

The next day our fever virus hit! Rosemary was first- Lion got it next! ;)

Despite Rosemary's fever (cold, fresh air is good for a fever, right?!), we went to Busch Garden for their Winter Wonderland. It was fun, though very crowded! The kids loved playing in the snow pit- tubing down the "hill", making snow angels, and posing with Frosty. You know you're truly a Floridian when you will wait over an hour to play for 10 mins in fake snow!!

Daddy was so good this year he got one present before Christmas- I surprised him with Bucs tickets on the 23rd! Too bad the Bucs played terribly, but it was still a fun day together!

Oh- that fever virus...  it kept knocking them down!!

Finally- the stockings were hung by the tree with care, and Santa Clause had just been here!!
Ready for Christmas morning...

That seems like that 'bout covers all of it, doesn't it?! But- oh!!!- I have so many more pictures to share!! Coming soon, to a blog near you.... ;)