It’s 2022, can you believe it?!
We had a whirlwind of a two weeks and this mama is ready for a little more routine and normalcy after a whole lot of crazy!
I didn’t take a “ton” of pictures (by my standards, anyway) over the holidays. I snapped ONE picture on Christmas morning and then put my phone down and enjoyed the chaos. Here’s a little look into the Kissel Family’s Christmas and New Years Eve.
Emily attached herself to me for the entire vacation. She was my little snuggly shadow the entire time!
Unless she was attached to Lucy, who was attached to Daddy!
On Thursday the 23rd, the girls and I drove downriver to deliver my final cookie order of the year. It looked pretty festive, if I do say so myself.
That evening we drove around to look at lights and stopped for some pictures at Santa’s Mailbox.
On Christmas Eve morning, I gave the girls some festive nails!
We had a VERY low key Christmas Eve. We baked, crafted, opened a few gifts with Grandma Rita, watched The Grinch, and ate breakfast casserole for dinner. It was lovely!
This was right before Penelope was caught with a cookie from Santa’s plate. Somebody got herself a last minute change to the naughty list! 😉
After the girls fell asleep, we watched Christmas Vacation and then put out the gifts before heading to bed. I snapped a few quick pics when the lights were already off.
You guys . . . Lucy Belle Kissel woke up at 3:30am on Christmas and WOULD NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP! I was losing my ever loving mind. Around 6:45 she came into our room dressed in this fancy sparkle dress from our neighbor and I finally gave up and let her wake up Matty, Emily, and Rita. The girls were not to be contained til we were all ready, so I sent them downstairs to look through their stockings . . . they greeted us with their new owl headlamps.
The aftermath of a successful Christmas morning!
Around noon we loaded up and drove down to my parents’ house where Matty got in the Christmas spirit.
My mom makes gingerbread houses with the grandkids every year the week before Christmas.
Look how cute my mom and dad are!
For two days after Christmas we just hunkered down at home, and it was awesome!
On the 28th we got together with some friends, and I was in charge of bringing a salad. Doesn’t it look yummy?!
These girlies played together for hours!
Miss Marie gave Lucy a twisty bun while we were at her house, and now Lucy wants me to do it all the time. I took this picture to show Marie how I did . . . but I really love it because it shows off all that cheek!
Sarah, Brian, Tommy, and Eleanor came to town on the Wednesday after Christmas, and we hosted them at our house all day. These kiddos were soooo happy to see one another and played alllllll day long.
They played so hard that they definitely needed to rest a bit while we finished up dinner.
On Thursday we were back downriver for a Christmas celebration with Grandpa Gary, Grandma Karen, and Aunt Judie.
My girls love them some Aunt Judie!
After 3.5 hours of playtime at Grandpa Gary’s, we headed to Rita’s to relax for a bit before enjoying a delicious dinner at Big Bear Lodge.
Uncle Brian showing off how strong his muscles are!
And then the next day was New Years Eve, and we hosted 11 people. I’m gonna be honest, I was crawling to the finish line by this point. I was super excited to have everyone over, but this was the 4th party I’d hosted over the two week vacation and I was getting a little tuckered out! But . . . that didn’t stop me from getting festive!
Who bought these kiddos noise makers???? (Me! Oops!) We ended up having to make a rule that they could blow them for one minute every hour on the hour. We set the timer for them each time, and it was actually pretty fun.
Stephanie and I watched the kids do gymnastics in the basement . . . with my giant bowl of popcorn.
We had TONS of appetizers for dinner, and this is just a small sampling of all the delicious food that people made.
These kiddos playing MarioKart together were super cute.
There’s all eleven of us!
Listen, I love these kiddos dearly but it had been a crazy two weeks and there was no way in HELL I was letting them all stay up until midnight . . .even though my girls wanted to so badly. We set the clocks ahead three hours on the main floor and got the kids bathed and in their jammies around 8:30 (or 11:30 if you looked at our clocks!)
I staged a little photo shoot on the stairs while Matty found last years ball drop video on You Tube and we did a big celebration at Midnight (9:00!!!) The kiddos took a while to settle down afterward, but I’d say they were all asleep by 10pm, which gave me two hours to relax and enjoy the adults without my kiddos running around needing me. #mamawin
On New Years Day, the family headed back to Bloomington and we did something super fun with friends in the afternoon . . . we rented out an entire movie theatre to see Sing 2!
You can have up to 25 people, which worked out to $8 a person, and it was SO MUCH FUN! It was a yucky, snowy, dreary afternoon and the perfect day to watch a movie with just our friends. Oh, and Sing 2 was fantastic!
Yesterday we spent the morning shoveling all the snow we got overnight, and Lucy took a break to make friends with our new neighbor’s 10-year-old St. Bernard!
And the rest of the day was spent taking down about half of the Christmas decorations and prepping for going back to school. I’m not going to lie, I’m really looking forward to having three hours to myself today while both girls are at school!
I hope everyone has a good re-entry back to “normal” life. Have a great week!
XOXO
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