I Was Called Scrooge :-)

So, yea... the title explains it all. I'm not going to lie, this time of year has been pretty hard for me. So much has happened this year, so many changes, moving and adapting to a new place right before the holiday season... It has been a lot to process. 

Normally, I am itching to put my Christmas Tree up before Thanksgiving, there is Christmas music stations in the car, Christmas music playing in every store, driving through neighborhoods and seeing all he lights... I miss it. 

I did not put a tree up until 2 weeks ago. Not like me at all. It has been difficult being away from family and everything that was "normal". All 5 of us miss my mother-in-laws AMAZING sugar cookies!!!! Pretty sure Will has asked me daily to procure sugar cookies for him. I still have not mastered the baking products and spices yet so I have not done a whole lot of baking. 

I even had an emotional breakdown last night while shopping for presents. I went to 2 two stores and a "walmart" like store and could not find wrapping paper anywhere. Yep... came home with tears down my cheeks. My husband surely thinks I have lost my marbles by now. So we went back today and found some basic wrapping paper. My kids presents are wrapped in Mickey Mouse Soccer paper and Minnie eating ice cream. It works and its cute. 

I cam out of my funk today and we had a great day. We had brunch with some friends and let the kids run wild. It was nice. For the past 6 years my mother-in-law has made chili on Christmas Eve. So I kept with the tradition and cooked up some chili sans corn bread. It was delicious and all the kids loved it. We also drove around on Christmas Eve to look at the lights back home so I figured, lets go into the city and check out their lights display, huge tree, and ice sculptures around the government building and Lenin Square. I found out that Olympia is organizing a tour Saturday night to take the residents to all the same places that I was going to try and go to tonight so we postponed our adventure until Saturday. It will probably be easier than trying to organize the cars to take us to several places and haul kids, carseats, and strollers. 

Here are some photos from today. Merry Christmas Everyone! 

I think this is the best shot I have ever taken of them. At least they are all somewhat with the program

CJ has had enough

God forbid they get close and act like they love each other :-)

My beautiful little girl

Ash and her daddy

Ash and Mike are cheesing hard in this photo

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

We are closing the night with The Nutcracker Ballet. I always loved this ballet when my mom and grandmother would take me and can not wait until I can take Ash. So the next best thing is to watch The Nutcracker Ballet movie made in 1993 with the NYC ballet and Macaulay Culkin. Good Night!