Getting a little behind

No, the headline is not among my new year's resolutions. I've been working out for several months and am actually pretty proud of the results. I just realized it's New Year's Eve and I still haven't gotten around to writing about Christmas. Part of it can be blamed on me forgetting my camera at our last Christmas gathering, which meant I couldn't share the pictures I'd taken. But, well, let's just move on and pretend I posted this last week...

 

Santa and his reindeer have totally trashed my house! Returning from two days in the Cities, there was wrapping paper everywhere, piles of stuff, empty boxes... and I just can't imagine where it all came from. Unless maybe we forgot to clean before we left. I hate when that happens!

 

My kids are so spoiled! Not just with gifts, which they are, but because we let them open presents from us a full day early, so we don't have to lug them in the car.

 

And as always, it was a wrapping paper free-for-all, with pauses happening only when Sydney needed help reading something.

Barbies and Legos and Lalaloopsie dolls and hockey gear and Disney Princesses and baseball cards and... the list goes on and on. These kids scored big! (And that's mostly thanks to presents sent by extended family in other states. We chose to got the "fewer, bigger" gift route this year.)

 

For AJ, the big gift was waiting in the basement. Can't tell what it is?

 

Here's a better shot once he was able to put it to use. (Jeff assembled it in the basement. I'm still not sure how we'll be getting it up/out to the driveway.)

 

 

Meanwhile, you can see Sydney tightly clutching her big gift. Here's some video of her opening it:

 

 

She initially named the doll Starlight, but later had second thoughts about such an untraditional moniker. She's not all Hollywood yet! She seemed stumped, and so I helped her brainstorm. Since it's an A-MERican Girl doll, and we say MERRY Christmas, she ultimately decided to name her doll Mary. It wasn't until much later that I realized when I was little, my favorite doll was also named Mary.

Hopefully I'll post more Christmas memories in the coming days. But I must admit that one of my resolutions for 2013 will be to blog less and play more. Yes, it may mean I'll forget some stories in the future, but the memories of the feelings we had will be far more important.