Christmas Download

We had a great Christmas break traveling to Colorado to celebrate with my family. Dan and I swap holidays every year so that each side of our families gets Christmas AND Thanksgiving. This year we did Thanksgiving with Dan's family and Christmas with mine.

Kip's first Christmas!!!!

It was extra special this year because it has been about a decade since my parents, sisters, and I have all been together for Christmas in our childhood home in Colorado. Every other year either I've been with Dan's family in Kansas or we celebrated in Chicago when my grandma was alive. It was really fun to have Kippy in my home and for us all to be together. Mandy helped my mom decorate the house over Thanksgiving and I loved seeing all the old ornaments from when I was a kid.

Mandy, Dan, Kippy, and I flew out of New Jersey last Friday and returned on Wednesday. It felt like a nice long trip and we all had a lot of fun. Kippy did pretty well on the flights and kept-up his typical sleep routine (short naps and long nights). It was hard adjusting him back two hours for the time zone difference but that only really messed with his morning wake time.

 

We ate great food, lazed around watching TV, decorated Christmas cookies, played with Kippy, assembled two puzzles, Dan and I had a little errand date just the two of us, I practiced driving (it's been awhile and I need to reacquaint myself before hitting the streets of NYC), looked at Christmas lights, we went mall shopping, and my parents watched Kippy one night while Dan, Mandy, and I saw The Greatest Showman. The movie was meh but the music was epic. We agreed the story would have translated better on Broadway.

But enough of the chatter, we're all here for the pictures!

Morning snuggles with Marmie.

This is Mandy with my Uncle's dog, Daisy. She is very old but SO sweet.

We had a white Christmas Eve!

 

These are our favorite types of puzzles to do because they aren't super hard and have a lot of interesting things to look for and sort. We did these in less than 36 hours.

Kippy and Poppa!

Kippy enjoyed the Christmas tree lights.

Sweet smiles with Auntie Jessy.

Kippy pooped-out his Christmas jams before we opened presents but we had three festive bibs to wear throughout the day.

Kippy loved the Christmas wrapping paper and he actually started playing with (re: eating) some of the toys he got!

 

Dan took this nice photo of the five of us. Paper crowns from Christmas party crackers.

Merry Christmas!!!

And last but not least, this is our dog, Addy. She is over 15 years old and this was probably the last time we'll see her. She is such a sweet and loyal pup.

Family Ornaments

I love looking at themed Christmas trees and I admire people who manage to coordinate their decorations. But, that's not me. As a kid, our Christmas tree was always covered in sentimental ornaments. Things we made and a random mix of ornaments collected over the years. For me, a sentimental tree perfectly represents that statement: "home for the holidays."

SO, naturally, our tree has a sentimental theme.

Every year, Dan and I get an ornament from any trip we take throughout the year and then around Christmas we pick-up a "family" ornament. The family ornament is just something to represent the year. I started this the year we got engaged. Here is our collection:

I didn't get to share our 2016 ornament on the blog last year since we hadn't announced our pregnancy.

This year Mandy found the cute snowman family at the ornament booth at the Bryant Park Holiday village this past weekend.

This year we also got an ornament on our Boston Babymoon and Terri Mom sent us a cute bird Hallmark collectable ornament.

And, of course, we have several ornaments for Kippy's first Christmas.

How about you? Sentimental or themed or both?

Weekending it

We had a very festive weekend!

Mandy planned to stay the weekend so we had a lot of fun Christmas things planned. On Friday, Dan got to see Chicago on Broadway with his boss and coworker for their office holiday "party." Mandy and I ordered take out and watched A Muppet's Christmas Carol at home.

On Saturday, we all got bundled up and took the subway into the city to visit the Bryant Park Holiday Village. Kippy hadn't been on the subway in a long time and we wisely decided to take him in the carrier instead of the stroller because we knew it would be crowded in Midtown. There was still snow on the ground so the carrier was extra useful. It was also Kip's first trip into Manhattan since we took him home from the hospital after being born! He did SO good and slept most of the entire journey. He fell asleep on the train and stayed asleep while Mandy, Dan, and I wandered around the village and got delicious food from the stands. We shared rice balls, amazing French fries with buttermilk ranch dip, and warm churros. YUM! We went indoors to nurse Kip and then changed his diaper at the library. We were back in Brooklyn by late afternoon and happy to check that adventure off our Christmas bucket list.

That afternoon we watched The Santa Clause and then after the sunset we loaded into the car and drove over to Dyker Heights to look at the Christmas lights display. It is a tradition for Dan and me  and it was Mandy's first time seeing it. This year it was extra nice to have the car because Kip was napping and we were toasty warm in our car.

We drove through Bay Ridge as well and were all SUPER surprised by how the lights are starting to rival Dyker. The displays were great and even better since it wasn't crowded and they weren't the same lights we've seen year after year.

Sunday was the special Christmas service at church so we dressed Kippy extra festive. It was great to celebrate with everyone early since most people are out of town on the holiday anyways. The kids sang a cute Christmas song and there was an epic potluck feast. After church we did some grocery shopping, grabbed some baked treats and headed home.

Mandy stayed to help us open up all the gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Johnson. The tree was overflowing and we decided to open everything from Kansas before we leave for Denver so there wouldn't be so much stuff to put away once we come home.

Kippy got SO MANY fun toys and puzzles and cute things to look forward to playing with. Dan and I got some fantastic stuff too. THANKS Terri Mom and Allen Dad!

Just a short work week this week and we all head out to Denver on Friday. Crazy, Christmas is just one week away.