Christmas 2011

Here's a weekend recap, if I think of more details I'll add them later. 

Friday (23rd):
- Friday before Christmas Dave had the day off, we traveled to Mason City, everyone in our family got our teeth cleaned at my dad's office at 2 pm.  Vanessa screamed, Calvin and Violet did great, no cavities for anybody.  Rachel had flown in to MSP Thursday late and drove to MC with a rental car.  She met us at dad's office so she could help watch the kids while we were unable to.  Calvin decided to be brave and went first with Dave.
- Got done with teeth by 4 pm, went back to my parent's house after a quick stop at Farm and Fleet to get a blow torch thing which was on sale.  My mom had prepared a lasagna, garlic bread, broccoli and klondike mint chip bars for dessert.  Supper was good, kids played before supper with blocks, coloring books, reading books, etc.  We left shortly after supper, got kids to bed right when we got home.

Pics from Friday (thanks Rachel for taking pics!):

 Calvin:

 Violet:

 Violet holding Dave's hand :)

 Vanessa screaming her head off, but it helped doc to see better. :)

Saturday (24th):

The morning was really fun.  We woke up and got ready quickly, and decided to have breakfast at the HyVee deli and get the kids donuts and pancakes.  After a yummy breakfast (V and C got chocolate frosted cake donuts, Vanessa ate a glazed) of pancakes, sausage and eggs, we shopped HyVee for food on the list.  The grocery store was busy, as I expected.  I had to pick up ingredients for all sorts of things.  Saturday was spent mostly in the kitchen!  Rachel drove down to our house and arrived late morning and brought along a yummy Starbuck's for Dave and I.  She got right to work with me in the kitchen preparing things for Christmas.  We made 2 gingerbread houses from scratch (still to be decorated, we didn't have time to do them on Christmas day), a big batch of italian sausage tortellini soup, a double recipe of frozen slush punch, baked a brownie from scratch for the bottom layer of the baked alaska dessert, and formed the ice cream layers of the baked alaska in a mixing bowl.

Violet went with Dave on a last minute shopping trip to fill my stocking and were gone for a few hours, and Calvin & Vanessa took naps for a couple hours while Rachel and I were in the kitchen.  It was more challenging to work when the kids woke up, but we still got everything done.  Despite all the cooking, we hadn't prepared anything for dinner, so Dave ordered two Godfather's Pizza for delivery.  As we were eating, I noticed a long black hair baked into one of the pizza slices (gag), so Dave called to tell Godfather's about it, so they immediately baked a new one and delivered it quickly.  We had already eaten enough of the second pizza so that extra free pizza (with no hair!) was saved for later meals. 

That night after the kids went to bed, Rachel, Dave and I spent many hours wrapping presents and Dave worked on preparing a dessert for Christmas dinner.  He ended up staying up super late because he didn't realize the recipe called for a 2 hour bake time, and he had started preparing the dessert around 11 pm.  We also put all the presents under the tree.

Saturday pics:

We had to get creative with the extra meringue. :D

Sunday (Christmas!):

We woke up around 7:30.  We instructed the kids NOT to go downstairs, they had to wait til we were ready.  We let them open up their stockings in the morning, but had to wait on the presents til after Christmas lunch was over.  They got slinkys, candy, toy cars, light up toys, and other little stuff.  Calvin got a chocolate ornament from Aunt Rachel and wanted to eat it so that was part of his breakfast. 

I put the ham (the one from Oscar's Smokehouse in NY that Rachel sent to us!) in the oven at 10 am.  We went to Bethany Bible Chapel from 10:30-11:30.  That hour was a combination of music, a message, and breaking bread.  I can't remember the last time Christmas was on a Sunday, it was a great change of pace and I enjoyed going that morning as a way to set aside time to remember Christ's birth and keep Him in my mind throughout the day.  Our kids got snuggly at church.

We got home to a delicious smelling house!  That hour and a half from the time that we got home to the time that everyone arrived was a bit tough...the kids were ITCHING to open gifts, but we had to wait, so we let them watch a movie in the basement.  Meanwhile, my parents arrived at 12:30, then Jay and Molly came around 1:30.  My mom brought green beans, roasted almond, and some dinner rolls.  Molly brought a cheesy potato casserole, mixed fruit, and broccoli salad.  Rachel provided 3 different kids of wine, and Dave and I heated up the ham and sliced it, and put together the slushy fruity punch.  We all sampled the persimmon pudding with with cream glaze that Dave created the night (or morning) before.  The meal was delicious!

THEN finally it was time to open presents. We all pitched in to clean up the kitchen to a satisfactory level and then sat in the living room. Dave and Violet started out handing out presents. It took us just over 2 hours to get through present opening, and the kids (Vanessa slept through most of it) were happy to help hand out presents and also couldn't wait to open theirs. Calvin and Violet got a lot of fun things (scooters, a toy airplane with a remote control to drive along the ground with sound effects, toy cars, arts and craft things, markers, games, sledding tubes, cardboard castle to decorate). Vanessa got a toy pig with four coins from Jay and Molly that go in the top slot that she played with for a long time. Dave got me a camera that I've wanted for a long time, a slimmer camera with a zip up padded case I can carry around with me easier. One of the funnier moments was when Rachel opened a up a present, she looked confused when she opened it and found a pair of men's lifting gloves. Dave looked a bit embarassed and said "Oops! Those were supposed to go to Jon, maybe I should lay off the straight whiskey next time I'm wrapping presents!"

We spent so much time opening gifts and cleaning up, that we didn't have time for the gingerbread house decorating like we had planned on.  We heated up the two soups (mom brought creamy turkey and rice, I made italian sausage tortellini) and Dave grilled the cheese bread and we ate around 8:00 pm.  The showcase for the night was serving the baked alaska dessert that Rachel created.  We had put the meringue on it earlier in the day, and pulled it out of the freezer to serve after the soup.  Dave poured over the top some rum and we lit it on fire for fun.  It flamed up for about 30 seconds, and the smoke set off the fire alarms in the house!  Everybody had a slice of the dessert, then we settled back into the living room to play a couple games, the kids ran around like crazy monkeys playing with all their new stuff, but eventually crashed around 9:45 pm.  My dad read them some stories, Dave and I put them to bed rather easily, they had just had a very busy fun day and I could tell they were very, very tired.  My mom and dad stayed til about 11 pm.  Jay and Molly and Rachel stayed overnight, we stayed up a little later playing a few more games.  I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of Jay acting out something in the game of charades around 1 am.

Jay and Molly stuck around long enough in the morning to fill some to-go cups full of coffee and cups of yogurt for the road.  They had Christmas lunch plans with her family and wanted to get home and prepare for that.

More pics of the day: