But what good times we had.
In December, Paul & I were able to attend both of our work holiday parties - his at the NAC, and mine at a funky restaurant called the Social. Our kids had two parties of their own too - the Bell party and the Multiples Family at Midway. Loads of fun, with lots of Santa sightings!
My brother's family drove into town on the 22nd. On the 23rd, we had our annual neighbour get together - this time at Jeff & Heather's across the street. Paul & I were lucky to have a built-in babysitter by having my oldest neice Amy stay with us, so we were able to enjoy a good night of poker. Ya - nothing says Christmas like losing your money a couple of days before - ha!
Early on Christmas Eve, we woke to primp (ha) ourselves for our first family photo - like, I mean, ALL of us (on my side.) We met at the RCSS and were done and THRILLED with the results within 30 minutes. Here they are (note, the quality isn't great as they're scanned - apparently on a dirty scanner!) :
We came home after the photos and the kids all had a great nap (Paul & I prepared the house for the next day, did some last minute wrapping.) Then we headed out to Deb's house for the evening. Tanya joined our families (well, she is family!) and we hung out, had festive bevvies and tonnes of great food and got home around 11:30 (I think?) We got the kiddies settled, then Santa and Rudolf paid a quick visit(YES Chantal, Rudolf did indeed CHEW the carrots with his teeth!) and Paul & I were off to bed.
Paul & I were up around 7:15 on Christmas morning to start working on breakfast. Peyton was up shortly thereafter and BURIED in Little People (her Santa gift.) Paige followed not long after and all three were up & playing by 8:30.
Deb's family, followed by my mom & Dan's family were in by 9:00AM, and Paul's parents were moments behind.
A couple photos:
The gift opening was NOTHING short of CRAZY - we have THREE kids to open gifts for! So Paul was busy getting breakfast off the ground, while I was desperately trying to make a mental note of who gave who what - but man, was that hard. My mom and mother-in-law were helping out with the kids and opening their gifts, but needless to say, we have NO pictures of this time - there just wasn't a spare moment to be had!
When it was all over, we sat down to a wonderful breakfast - 15 people - while the twins napped. Everyone helped cleanup, while Paul's father got the turkey ready and everyone was out the door somewhere around 12:30 (phew!) I got Peyton off to bed just as the twins were waking up. So we fed them and then I spent LITERALLY over 2 hours just breaking down the packaging on the children's toys - holy CRAP the toy packaging is just plain brutal, and my hands were killing me!
When Peyton got up from her nap, we bundled everyone up and went out for a nice long walk - note the GREEN Christmas!
We came home, put the twins down for their PM nap while Peyton played with her new things. Erin & Peter came over around 4:00PM followed by Paul's parents about an hour later, and we all enjoyed a (much more quiet) dinner of Turkey + all the yummy fixings. We opened MORE gifts and it was an early night - Peter & Erin were heading to Cuba on Boxing day, after all :)
Boxing day was leisure - I, of course, hit the malls, looking for those great deals. There were some, but I certainly didn't go nuts. Ha. A few pics of the kids and their new playthings:
New Year's Eve we went to Chantal & Colin's place - small, nice gathering. We knew we wouldn't be there for long as both Paul & I were exhausted. It seems something's gotten into Paige, and she's decided to not sleep overnight anymore. I wont harp on it (suffice to say it's not been a fun couple of weeks) but we did enjoy the couple of hours we were out - Peyton was entertained and the twins were spoiled with attention and we got to eat great food (yummy cheese - well most of it anyway!) But we were home by 8:30 and I think lights were out by 10:30. Yeah, lame I know but this is life with 3 under 3!!
We got out for another long walk on New Year's Day, and I wish we'd thought to snap a picture that day too, because it was so different from one week prior - we'd had freezing rain over a bit of snow and the roads were a mess...but it all melted by about 3PM and I'd go so far as to say it was hot out! Weird.
So that was our holidays in a snapshot - wonderful, family time.
This week is Paul's first week back to work (full week) and I am desperately trying to get the girls back into their nice routine. Making some headway - last night was the first in almost 2 weeks that Paige DID sleep the night - but I'm going to continue to cross my fingers...
In other FANTASTIC news - we lined up a Nanny for when I return to work. A sweet girl who's just finishing up Psychology at Carleton, and will be doing ECE sometime in the future. Rachel will be starting to come out - at least once a week - starting next week, and she will be with us full time when her school year is up. Which just happens to coincide with when my mat-leave is up. Man, WHAT a relief!
And in OTHER news - and I'm not sure I've mentioned this yet - but for anyone who doesn't know, Chantal & Colin are expecting # 1 - in May. And we're so very excited and happy for them. Maybe a boy? Likely not, if the girl trend keeps up! Either way, it's all good.
Gotta run ... hope everyone is well and that you've all had a great Christmas too!
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