Dec - Christmas

Grandpa Chip and Connie arrived on Monday afternoon.  We all ventured out to the airport to pick them up.  That's as busy as I've ever seen the airport - traffic going in and out was actually inching along. 

Rylee gave her bedroom up for the week they were here which meant that she shared with Jace.  They do this all the time in MN, but this was the first time Jace was on the top (in his loft) and Rylee was on the bottom.  I didn't think to take any pics, but I knew that Jace would want to have that shared!  We also put the kids Christmas tree in his room this year.  He enjoyed being the keeper of that too!

Tuesday was Christmas Eve.  My parents came over for some present opening (for the kids) and dinner (Grandma Sandy's lasagna). 

Jace had to open his big gift since most all his other presents were based around that.  

He finally got the Nintendo Switch that he has been asking for for two years.

I don't have a pic of Rylee opening her big gift because I made Jon take a video.  I wanted to catch her expression when she saw the Hamilton tickets.  She cried, kept saying, "Really?" and gave us the biggest hugs.  She knew the Broadway play was coming to town, but I had pretended that I couldn't get tickets in hopes that I could pull off a Christmas surprise.  :)

Here she is with another fave present though - a Hydroflask from the cousins.

Christmas morning we all wore our matching pajamas (something that Rylee requested and picked out for everyone) this year.  Cute!

Santa brought Jace a Minecraft board game and some games for his Nintendo Switch.

He brought Rylee new art supplies: colored pencils, markers, and paint pens.

Later that morning, my parents picked up Ray and Jeanette and brought them over for Christmas brunch.  I made my Grandma's egg bake and puffy wuffy, and my Mom brought her delicious caramel rolls too.

Christmas selfie!

Then we finished opening all our gifts.

Per usual, Jace lost interest in watching everyone else open their presents and decided to put together a new Lego set at the same time.  :)

There is a Christmas scavenger hunt game sitting next to Jace.  A few of us played that in the afternoon.  Connie, Jace and I were a team against Daddy and Rylee.  We had 20 minutes to go around the neighborhood looking for Christmas related items.  We took a picture of them on our cell phone as proof.  It was so fun!  We ended up beating Jon and Rylee by one point.  I'm sure this game will become a new Christmas tradition.  :)

That night we had a nice dinner of prime rib or skirt steak.  It was a lovely holiday!

Dec - Christmas Beard

Grandpa Chip and Connie visited us for Christmas this year.  Before they arrived, Jon decided to shave off his beard.  Only Rio liked snuggling with a bearded Jon.  Lol!

Actually, Rylee said she liked the beard too.  Traitor!

Of course, we made him shave it off into a mustache first.  Super Troopers, anyone?

Clean shaven again - a Christmas miracle!  :)

Dec - Christmas Tree Museum

The Saturday before Christmas, we took Ray and Jeanette to a local museum that has a themed Christmas tree exhibit.  Jeanette loves Christmas so I knew she would enjoy it.  They always do such nice things for us so we wanted to do something nice for them in return. 

Santa was there so Jace asked for a Nintendo Switch...

...and Rylee said she didn't really need anything.  

Santa said he'd NEVER had anyone say that before!  :)

Everyone picked their favorite tree.  Gaga's favorite was the western tree.

Jeanette's favorite was the Girl Scout tree.

Jace's mind was blown by the upside down tree!

Rylee's favorite was this space-themed tree.

Jon's favorite was the Disney tree.  They were showing one of his favorite cartoons, Pluto's Christmas Tree, so I think that helped sway his vote.

My favorite was the Star Wars tree (even if they put some Star Trek stuff on it).

Papa's favorite tree was the butterfly tree.

Every year, you get to vote for a new themed tree.  Last year we voted for Harry Potter, but it lost by 40 votes.  Here's hoping it will win this year!  

After the museum, we all went out to breakfast.  It was such a nice morning!

Dec - Events

Mucci (the 3rd grade team leader) and I were the only ones to attend the school's Christmas party.  She snapped this pic to send to our team as in "you're missing out!"  :)

Rylee had three chorus performances.  We had a bit of a fashion emergency before the first one.  We tried on her dress from last year and it was too small - she's grown so much I should have realized.  Gaga had to go on a frantic search for us the next day since Rylee's first school performance was on Wednesday.  She was able to find this skirt and shirt (which she wore for the school shows).

Gaga kept looking for a dress though and found this adorable one for the parent performance.  Thank you personal shopper Gaga!  I don't know what Rylee would have worn without you!

As always, the parents were so rude.  I'd like to know if this is how parents behave everywhere or just South Florida (which could be the rudest place on the planet).  The people in front of us not only video taped the whole thing, but with their hands over their heads so they were blocking our entire view.  Luckily, I could move my head so I could see Rylee, but I couldn't see the rest of the choir.  Other people talked through the whole performance and others let their kids run around the cafe playing tag.  But it was a lovely performance and Rylee did great on her speaking role.

After the show with Nico and Emily...

Ry and Em...

With the siblings...

Jace had a pajama day for his class party.  If you're wondering why he's giving me the thumbs up pose, it was because I got it right this time.  Geez, you send your kid (Rylee) to school in her pajamas on the wrong day one time, and they never let you forget it.  Lol!

They had waffles and ice cream.  Here he is with Oliver.

No pics from Rylee's class party, but Emily's mom did send some pics from their field trip to the Frost Museum the second to last day before break.

Alani, Rylee, Emily, Maria, Hailey

The last day was early release, and our principal let us leave right after the students, so I took the kids to the museum after school.  It was ugly sweater day...

Meanwhile, Papa was at our house mowing the grass and waiting while Rio got groomed.  Thanks Papa!

That night, the kids went to Diane's for what I thought was a cookie decorating party, but really turned out to be a cookie exchange.  Doh!  My unfrosted sugar cookies didn't look too impressive.  It turns out you should always click on pictures that come in texts, because in the message it cuts off the top and bottom of the picture.  If I would have clicked on the picture I would have clearly seen the words cookie exchange!  Mom fail!  (Though not as bad as the pajama day incident.)  

Diane, being the sweetie that she is, decided to make frosting and let the kids decorate the cookies after all - which Rylee said was super fun so you're welcome everyone.  :)

Dec - Universal Day 4

No pics of day 3 since we were at the water park all day.  It was only in the low 70s so the place was pretty much empty, but the water was heated so we had a nice time.  Jon and Rylee did some crazy slides.  The four of us did some tamer slides together.  Both kids loved the wave pool.  Jace especially loved the lazy river so he and I did that a lot.  It was a restful day which we needed after two days of walking 25,000 steps (according to Jace's fitbit).

Day 4 was only a half day since we wanted to be on the road by 1pm.  Jon and Rylee wanted to ride Hagrid's Motorbike again so they went there as soon as the park opened and only had a 15 minute wait.  The best part was that they got the first car.  (Jon's a good dad, he let Rylee have the motorcycle again.)  Jace and I went to ride the Hippogriff roller coaster and we had the ride all to ourselves.  Jace opted for a few cars back instead of the front car, but it was really cool to be the only ones on the ride. 

That last day was about doing all our favorite things again and seeing our last couple of Christmas trees. 

Jace's favorite tree was the Jurassic Park tree.

He also loved this Pteranodon Flyer ride...

Checking out the museum...

Jace and Rylee also wanted to ride the train again...

...so we had some Butterbeer in Diagon Alley 

and the kids found some hidden spells.

Then we rode the train back so we could get video of the kids walking through the wall at King's Cross Station just like in the movies.  Rylee also wanted to head back to buy Chocolate Frogs at Honey Duke's.

Our last Christmas tree!

This wasn't an official tree, but of course we needed a pic in front of the Harry Potter tree.

The last thing we did was stop and get our free ornaments from our tree hunt.  We were expecting one of these 4 pretty Universal ornaments that were pictured on the passport brochure... but we really got two plastic minion ornaments!  Lol!  Don't get me wrong, Jace and I love minions (evidenced by his shirt), but we both left feeling slightly jipped.  Next time I think I'll stop by the reward center first to see if the ornament is worth it!  Oh well, now Jace and I will have a funny story to tell every year when those minion ornaments come out.  :)