Mimi and Grandpa came down on Monday, Dec 21st to bring the kids their Christmas pajamas and few small presents. After opening presents we had a little recital. Andrew and Ellie played Deck the Halls duet on the violin, Lila played her piano duet Jingle Bell Rock (she worked hard on it and did a good job), Ellie played Mary Did You Know on the piano, and we watched several of Marcus Christmas songs from his preschool show. It was a nice visit.
Tuesday we had planned on skiing. We didn't know if we go morning or afternoon, but when we got up we decided to just go for the morning. So we ate breakfast and got ready to go. We managed to sneak a spot in Wild Cat Parking -- it was a little tight and all the girls were nervous. Lila was even doing her "dad, dad, dad". And Andrew was chanting yeah, go for it. Haha the difference between boys and girls. As we were putting on helmets and stuff we realized we left Marcus's skis at home. Steve skied down to the base with him and rented a pair of skis. They met up with us at the Wild Cat lift and I managed to snag a picture of all 6 of us going up (well you can see a sliver of Ellie's white helmet at the end, she refused to lean forward for the pic).
The next couple of days were filled with movies, food, and relaxing. The boys helped me make our traditional chocolate cake for Jesus's birthday and then we leave a slice for Santa. They wanted to add some strawberry syrup to the batter because Andrew really likes the strawberry syrup in his hot cocoa (it really tastes like chocolate covered strawberries -- yummy), but the flavor doesn't really come through in the cake, but it was still a tasty chocolate cake. Then on Christmas Eve we had a delicious dinner by candle light where we read messages of how Jesus is the light of the world.
After which we watched Dreams of Bethlehem from Elder Holland's wonderful Christmas message. Then we finished our advent chocolate calendars and Christmas Gospel Art reading, brushed teeth and then we turned on Santa tracker to see where he was. And guess what Santa wore a mask while delivering presents this year.
Finally Christmas morning. The excitement! When Andrew woke up I heard him go running into the kitchen and ran right into a kitchen chair then he came squealing into our room, "he ate it. Santa ate the cake!"
At that point everyone was awake so I held back the excited boys while Steve turned on the Christmas lights and then we let them all run in.
Marcus a couple of days earlier said, that he thought there was a live doggy in the presents who just wasn't woof, woofing yet. Ellie made some of his dreams come true with a stuff dog she made at sewing class.
We got a new game Azul that is fun but the only bummer is it is four player. I decided it would be a fun game for us to play with the girls after the boys go to bed (a good excuse to spend a little more time with them). So one night we had ice cream and played the game and little Marcus came out and we saw him sitting on the stairs watching us. We told him it was past his bedtime and his little lip started to shake and he said, "but you are playing a game without me, it's supposed to be a family Christmas game." Heartbreaker! The ironic thing is Steve and I had just played several games of Cover Your Assets with the boys only the night before. Marcus was quite animated during those games and at one point refused to play a match he had in his hand because "he knew Dad would just steal it" He was looking Steve's cards and realized he had one of those too. I sure love relaxing and hanging out with my family. I hope to milk this next week of break for all that it's worth.