Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01090

Christmas arrived today and we enjoyed a nice morning at home with the kids. We started off with some amazing cinnamon rolls that Allison made. Her best in years. She learned the secret of leaving them out over night so that they puff up to be huge and fluffy. The kids enjoyed giving us the gifts that they had gotten from the Christmas Shop at school and we enjoyed seeing them enjoying the gifts that they received from us and from Santa.

We decided a little after the Summer ended that this year we would get one big present for everyone in the family and that would be an inflatable paddle board. So, during October and November we received 4 of them from Amazon and I put them into the garage. We picked out different designs and each one game in the same cardboard box so it wasn’t until I opened each one today that we were able to select which paddle board each person would get. Instead of wrapping these giant boxes we covered the stack of them with a blanket and revealed that at the end of the gift unwrapping.

We also had a Facetime call with Allison’s parents and they showed us around their new house. We didn’t do gift openings because the gifts that we sent never arrived and the gift that they sent for Allison either never arrived or was stolen from the porch. UPS says that it was delivered to the front porch but honestly it never came up on the UPS app and we’re real good about checking the front porch even though we have explicitly stated to UPS that all deliveries go to the back porch. We’re still trying to clear that up.

Allison made some really nice needlepoints for the kids. she made a narwhal for Andy and a mushroom one for Eva and then she put those onto pillows for the two of them. The kids really liked them a lot.

Everyone was very good to me with some Dad stuff plus lots of candy for my secret snack drawer at work and a new video game and some fun clothing. Eva even found me a He-Man chocolate bar, that was awesome!

Before we left for the Cape I took a photo of the kids with their presents. I like to rearrange all the presents under the tree for a few days at least. Something that we always did growing up so I still do it. You can see the pile of Paddleboards in their bags to the right.

After we got showered and dressed we headed down to Cape cod to spend a couple of days with my parents. We had a nice afternoon meal and then unwrapped some gifts. We played a new game that Santa brought the family. The game is called Incohearant Family. You have to say a string of words and the decipher what it was that was being said. Andy’s favorite card was this one. Perfect 10 year-old boy humor.

It was nice and relaxing to be down the Cape. Mom and dad have two Christmas trees. There is an artificial one that stays up all year round and changes with the holidays. I got my dad some LED lights that you can quickly change with a remote specifically for that tree. For now those lights are on the real tree that is on the sunporch. Dad just finished remodeling it and it is a really nice place to be while at the house. The remote for the lights was a big hit with the little ones. Andy figured out how to control both sets of lights correctly. I like the setting of having red, green and white lights on the tree. He liked finding every possible combination that he could think of.