Look closely...yep, you're looking at four floor sized puzzles assembled on top of each other. During the cold months of winter, we're grateful for bright colorful puzzles to keep us entertained, even if it means spending an hour putting them back.
The puzzle master himself!
If you were to ask me what my favorite day of the year is, it wouldn't take me two seconds to tell you that it's Christmas Eve. As fun as it is to open presents on Christmas day, I still love Christmas Eve more.
Back when I was a kid, my mom tells me that one Christmas Eve me and my siblings were bouncing off the wall. So they took us out for the day. We went bowling, went out for lunch, and saw a movie. We then went home, stuffed ourselves silly with appetizers and watched Christmas movies. It totally stuck and it's how we've spent our Christmas Eves ever since. Every year one of us siblings would get a chance to "plan" how our Christmas Eve was going to go. It was pretty much the same thing every year, we just got to pick where we went out to eat, which ranged from delis, to Chinese buffets, to steak houses.
Glenn and I really wanted to carry on this same tradition with our family, and staying home in Philly made it easy. We started our day out with bowling, the Bostons joined us. This was probably the funnest time I've had bowling with my family because the kids are big enough to bowl on their own (for the most part). Jayda especially did great. And bowling alleys are so cool, their bumpers go up and down depending on who's bowling. Not that it mattered, I'm pretty sure Sky smoked us all!
Afterward we had lunch at Chili's...
And saw Tangled at the theatre. I'm pretty sure it was the cutest movie I've ever seen.
After that we went home and with the help of the Matson family, feasted on all sorts of appetizers while watching Christmas movies. The kids got their yearly Christmas Eve gift of pajamas. They also put out cookies for Santa, chocolate chip, because those are Santa's favorite ;)
We laid out our stockings...
And went to bed. Santa laid out the gifts, and then hung up newspaper between the hallway and the living room so that no one peek without mom and dad there (another tradition we grew up with).
The kids were a bit underwhelmed with the newspaper, in all honesty I think when they woke up they forgot that it was Christmas. Skyler came in and asked for cereal, and Jayda asked to use our bathroom "cuz there's stuff there." After a bit of explaining they got it, and Glenn and I got up so they could break through the paper.
After that the present opening ensued. We started with stockings and moved to the big stuff. Everyone had a really nice Christmas and it was so dang fun to have kids old enough to really understand what was going on. I just love Christmas so much, I'm already excited for next year!
There are things in life that I really want to like, but I just can't get there. Goat cheese is one of them, I've tried it so many times, no dice. Running, I so wish I liked to run, I just don't. And going into the city. I really want to like going into the city. I wish I could sit and tell you about all of our crazy adventures in Center City Philly, but I can't. I avoid the city, I can't stand how hard it is to park, I don't like rubbing shoulders with a million different people, and I'm a wreck behind the wheel, the roads are so narrow!
But, in the spirit of Christmas, and being that this might be our one and only Christmas here, we had to venture in and see how they celebrate Philly style. Once we were parked we had a great time! We walked through Christmas village, where they play great live music and sell all sorts of fun stuff, a lot of it of a European nature. We warmed our bellies with hot chocolate, and checked out the lights show at Macy's. This Macy's was awesome, and HUGE. On youtube they had shown a flash mob of the Halleluiah chorus that had just recently happened there. I would have LOVED to have seen it in person!
I still don't see myself running to the city every chance I get, but we did have a great time. It definitely helped to get us in the Christmas spirit!
I was really excited when I saw this thing. I don't know what it's called, but when you light candles under it, it makes the top fan spin. We had one growing up and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
I've known about the bridge walk for a while now, but this time I was finally able to do it! Every fall there is a 10K on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge that goes from Philly to Camden NJ. I drive this bridge all the time, so I thought it would be so cool to cross it on foot. Since I wasn't quite ready to run a 10K, the walk was just perfect. It was a very cool experience, there were a TON of people there, and Bann was a great walking partner.
Since this will be our first year here in Philly, we thought we'd go all out with our decorations, including a tree, we haven't had a tree in years! It was so much fun pulling out all of our stockings and decorations that we've been collecting, I forgot that we'd had a lot of them. Glenn insists on a real tree, so we found a beautiful one that is perfect, except for the fact that it doesn't put off any smell at all! Oh well, I'll just have to get a candle.
The kids had a blast decorating it, it was funny to watch them, it seemed that the majority of the decorations ended up on the same five branches. They didn't quite get the concept of spacing, but it was dang cute anyway. I love our tree!
It's a real treat to have family with us during Thanksgiving while living out here in Philly. We've been looking forward to having Glenn's parents, sisters and brother Shad with us for a while now and we had a wonderful time!
Since Jayda still had school and I was so busy in the kitchen, I wasn't able to come along with them every day, but they were able to go into the city, and see Valley Forge. The day I did go along we checked out Kitchen Kettle (never get sick of that place!), had lunch at the Smorgasbord, and rode the tour at Hershey. We also drove through the Hershey Sweet Lights Tour which is a fun two miles of Christmas Lights, including a Christmas forest. It was no Temple Square or Longwood Garden, but it was still a lot of fun.
The day before Thanksgiving was Glenn's birthday, which was great to celebrate with Glenn's family in town. He is now one year away from being thirty! I love this guy so dang much, it's hard to believe that we're about to enter a new decade together.
Thanksgiving day was a blast for me. I woke up, put the apron on and got busy making everything from the turkey to the stuffing, to the best brussel sprouts I've ever had. The rest of the family pitched in with their really yummy desserts. A very satisfying meal indeed!
The rest of the time was spent hanging out, playing games, eating more great food and watching a lot of Glee, a show that I am currently and utterly obsessed with. We had a wonderful time! Enjoy the pictures, they're totally out of order, but I'm sure you can figure it out :)
It's weird not having Jayda around during the day anymore, I miss her. But I have also really enjoyed my time with my little buddy. I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to send him off to school too!
For playgroup I got hooked up with some free passes to the Please Touch Museum, which is a real treat because it's an awesome museum that's not exactly cheap to get in to. Sky and I had a lot of fun. And since it was just the two of us, I was able to relax and let him go and play with whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted. If we go back, we are going to go earlier in the day because the poor kid did not want to leave! It's stuff like this that makes me happy to live in Philly.
