Unwrapping the Week

Christmas week was a busy one!

Sunday Night
Invited a few kids over to watch The Grinch.  Kids all in their PJs.  We had planned to pass out popcorn and hot cocoa, but after the floor was completely covered in popcorn...we nixed the cocoa and stuck with water.

Monday (christmas eve)
Went to a nursing home and passed out pizzelles and hot cocoa.  The ladies (all wearing christmas sweaters) were enamored with the kids.  One of the ladies was 94 years old! One of the ladies gave Maslyn a kiss.  We mingled with the 15 residents as they were finishing their lunch.  The kids did really good keeping a smile on their face and passing out goodies.  I cannot even tell you how just the kids presence lit up the room.  Shaun and I left feeling extremely humbled.

"Tried" to go to Christmas Eve service.  We got there,  walked into the church (had to drag in one resisting kid), then sat in the pews for songs while same kid began to cry and struggle to exit the pew.  A couple songs in (barely 10 minutes) and we decided this was a battle that would just get worse, so we left.  Now 2 kids screaming in the car...we got home and put them to bed.  Got them up a few minutes later so as not to miss out sprinkling reindeer food outside, then back to bed!

Tuesday (Christmas)
Boys got up at 7am, tip toed into the living room where magic was awaiting them.  Shaun and I stayed in bed and listened to their excitement about filled stockings, eaten cookies, new presents under the tree.  They got permission to open their stockings, again, we just listened to their excitement about "it's just what i wanted!", "how did he know?", "this is awesome!" They would come running down the hall to our room to show us everything...even the orange at the bottom of the stocking.

At 8am, Maslyn woke up and the boys helped her open her stocking.  She's not much of a gift opener yet. We then had some cinnamon buns, made a couple phone/skype calls, then finally sat down to open gifts.  The kids were grateful and appreciative of gifts this year (a big relief to me and Shaun).  They loved their new jammies, dot to dot books, computer (grady's favorite gift) and walkie talkies from gramma.  They were so excited about new star wars comforters from grammy.  They were jumping up and down about The Lorax while Maslyn read her new books from Uncle Eric & Aunt Stacy.  Among other exciting gifts were more legos, some star wars transformer figures, teenage mutant ninja turtle figures, an activity cube for Maz, pogo sticks, and an outdoor geometric climbing dome.    Thank you for all the special gifts from the east coast!

Everyone stayed content, happy, and occupied the rest of the day!

Wednesday
An entire day of family adventure at the Monterey Aquarium and then Gilroy Gardens Amusement Park.   Maslyn loved staring at all the fish, she'd say "ish" and make the sign.  It was really fun to watch her enjoy the creatures.  The boys were good sports about letting her watch for a long as she wanted.  We spent a couple hours there and then it was time to leave.  The boys thought we were going home and fell asleep on the short car ride to Gilroy Gardens.  They awoke and had no idea where we were.  Once inside and seeing all the rides, they asked if they could ride one and we got so much joy out of telling them they could ride anything they wanted!  Shaun and I had loved watching the kids enjoy themselves so much.  This will be a future post with pictures.

Thursday
Had a couple friends over in the morning, then all the kids took a nap after lunch from being up so late the night before.  Shaun came home from work early and we finished putting together the geometric dome.  Kids played on it until it was time for the boys to go to a birthday slumber party.  We dropped them off at 6pm, then headed to Target to check out the Christmas clearance section.  3 days after Christmas and it was pretty picked over.  Still had fun letting Maz run around Target.  Got home, put Maz to bed, then watched marathon episodes of Parenthood.

Friday (today)
Woke up to Maz singing...instead of boys lego building.  Picked them up at 830 from the slumber party, and now they're busily lego building in their room.

It's been a fun busy week!