Christmas Break in Review

The kids are going back to school today. *sniff* Four months into this new way of life and I haven't yet figured out why parents complain about school holidays. I enjoyed ours and look forward to the next...in less than two weeks. Though that will only be a four day weekend.

At any rate, here's some pics from our break.

The last day of school was free dress, and a half-day. The kids love free dress...well, except Spock. He finds free dress days, um, illogical. He ended up wearing most of his uniform, he just had a different shirt on...which you can't see coz it's under his school jacket here. :D

So, after just a few hours, we were off for the holidays...almost. We had a few things to take care of first. Like Santa.

Yeah, I let it go down to the wire this year. Never again. Though it worked just fine, I still don't want to be standing in line outside BassPro on Saturday morning before Christmas.

After Santa, and lunch, we were off to the theater for three more shows of Nutcracker.

In between, Braniac got to sing at church, which always makes him happy. He's looking forward to first grade when he can be in the children's choir. B is on the front row, right, second one in, red sweater vest, yawning, puts the blanket over his head...

And then it was time to get ready for Christmas. Made pie this year. We've never found a gluten-free pre-made crust that we all like so I made mine from scratch. Turned out pretty good. Now Braniac wants me to make him a chocolate pie. :)

6am, Christmas Eve morning, where were you? I was at Toys R Us, in the rain, with Mr. Great-heart who was spending his birthday and Christmas money on his brothers. Yeah, he's that awesome. He also always buys people gifts with his AWANA bucks and his Space Rewards (Sunday School) money. You wish you had a kid this awesome. ;)

Christmas Eve also happens to be Mr. Great-heart's birthday. He wanted to ride a train so we loaded our cupcakes and were off to the train station to wait...and boy did we wait.

When people ask why public transportation isn't more popular, unreliability is probably a great answer. Almost 45 minutes late. We missed our return connection. But it all worked out for the best...no, actually, it didn't. Due to us having to take a later train, Babycakes didn't vomit on the carpet at home, he vomited all over me in the train. I think Metrolink should give me a free pass for making sure he only puked on me instead of their seats. :D

Christmas Eve.

Writing our thank you to Santa.

5am Christmas morning. Well, at least they don't come in and jump all over the bed. :)

Last year of going overboard. Next year we have a limit. 

But at least they know what's important. :)

We took it easy most of the time. Recovering from Nutcracker and our first four months of going to school. I took the kids to the farm a few times. Here's Braniac's first day. (I didn't tell him what those nice cattle we fed the weeds to were for...he'd probably never go back.)

On NYD we went out to San Pedro to see the USS Iowa. Very impressive. We'll have to go back in about five years to see how far along they've come in making their museum.

The Teenager turned 16. No pics, he's allergic to the camera. But here's the food we ate.

For the closing ceremonies we had a nice rainstorm. This had been a double rainbow but by the time I found my camera and got out front this was all that was left.