Christmas…again!

We had a mock Christmas morning with Tyler's parents too.  It was a great time.  Lots and lots of presents and a chance to Skype with Jason and Ali's family as well as Sarah and Tyson while the kids opened gifts from them.

Logan got a Rudolph book that has Papa's voice reading the story to him.  It was great to watch the kids listen to the story.

And Scott also brought us some fantastic presents from China, including a belt for Tyler…it IS adjustable in size:

 

Lucy had her closing night performance and we all went to the Keg for dinner beforehand, care of Grandma Maurine.  

Finishing this play is bittersweet.  It's been a great experience for Lucy and I have seen her grow tremendously over the last few months as she's had to be responsible for her performance and as she's stepped out of her comfort zone and met new people and tried new thing.  But we are exhausted and it'll be great to get some time to just chill!  She was a super star!

Christmas should last all month long!

Fortunately, we had just enough time between one family leaving and the next family showing up to get 2 days of school in and some house cleaning and bedding washed…and then the fun started again.  It was awesome!

Lucy's shows went excellent again, and Tyler's parents and Grandma were even able to join us for our Branch Christmas party.

Logan and Papa were attached at the hip, nearly, and I think neither one of them wanted it any differently.

That's some serious hokey-pokey going on in here!

Saying Goodbye is the hardest thing

I'll admit that there wasn't a lot of sleep that happened while our guests were here, but we were teary and emotional regardless.  It's tough to say goodbye when you're having so much fun.

We squeezed in a few more hours of fun before everyone had to pack up and go.  Lucy is definitely going to miss having her best-friend-cousin here.

After they left, we decided to have a quiet pajama evening and played with the kid's new toys.  The house is too quiet and too empty.  Good thing we have more company coming in less than a week!  I love Christmas!

Mini-Bourne-Christmas

We decided to have Christmas morning with Grandma and Bumpa while they were here.  And Christmas dinner too.  It was definitely a good substitute for the real deal.  So glad to share Christmas with these guys.

"Crayola Marker-Maker!"  This was a great gift, and a great idea.  Promptly after gift-opening Max disappeared for about 30-minutes.  I finally sent Tyler to find him.  What he found was a boy covered in marker ink and a carpet with a smudged spot of blue where he had spilt within seconds of opening the box, and had spent the next 29.5 minutes scrubbing, trying to get it clean.  As soon as he saw Dad, his eyes got big and teary and he said, "Dad…I need some help!"  Dad couldn't deny his penitence and they worked on cleaning it up together.  Fortunately Crayola is smart enough to make washable markers, and the carpet is 'mostly' clean now.  

'Jake and the Neverland Pirates!!'

Matching Fashion Designer books

I love this series of pictures of my dad opening his Spitfire.  The facial expressions of him and my Grandma are priceless.  

We broke out the games and puzzles right away while turkey dinner finished in it's preparations.  

Skating

While Grandma and Bumpa were here, we decided to take advantage of the free skate at Market Square.  Emma's never been skating before, so she was super excited to go.  She's a bit of a perfectionist as well, so it was hard at first when she couldn't do it right away, but she practiced and caught up to Lucy fairly quickly.

Starbucks handed out free peppermint hot chocolate.  It was deliciously delicious.  Mmmm-mmm.  

My mother in her element.  I wish the rest of us had inherited her talent for skating.  She says when we were kids we lived across the street from a skating rink and at night, after we had all gone to bed, she would go across to the skating rink by herself and skate while dad sat in the living room and watched her from the window.  And when she was a kid, her dad made a skating rink in their backyard and she would be on it all night until the streetlights came out.  

After the zamboni cleared the ice, mom slipped on the new ice and banged her head.  She took it easy from that point…crazy lady.  But she wouldn't stop because she loves skating too much.  

This appears to be a very cruel trick played by a dad on his exhausted son, but to be honest, Logan asked him to do it.