finishing up 2020

We had big plans for Christmas Break...okay, not really, but I had thought we would try to get out and do some fun things. Our break always goes better when we stay busy. Those plans didn't pan out since we were quarantining-Molly had the worst of it Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and two days after. I had the worst of it Christmas night but woke up feeling much better. I had some achy muscles, tiredness, and congestion for about a week after that. Everyone else felt fine that week but quarantining was a family affair, whether or not they felt sick. We spent our days at home watching a lot of movies and playing a lot of basketball in the loft. Justin had been collecting plastic gas station cups and stacking them up in his "home office" and finally decided to throw them all away but not before making a super tall cup tower.

face paint done by Molly?

We spent the weekend at home and then Justin had to work a couple of days the beginning of the next week but then we decided to go to the cabin and do some of our quarantining there. No one else in my family had planned on being there so we took advantage of that and spent Wednesday-Sunday there by ourselves. It was so nice-I don't know how we would have handled quarantining all that time at home.

We were able to go out everyday and find an unoccupied sledding hill. There wasn't a lot of snow but we were just sledding, cross country skiing, and snowboarding so it was fine for us. That snowboard was something Justin literally found on the side of the highway by our street a few years ago. It had a questionable picture of a scantily-clad woman on it but Justin painted over it. Stockton has loved it for a couple of years, but Molly and Brynn also got pretty good on it over the few days we were there. Brynn also got good on my cross-country skis. Maybe someday we will get skis and snowboards that actually fit the kids....or they will just grow into the ones we have! Their biggest wish is to go real skiing or snowboarding but we have never taken them. I would love to it's just so dang expensive!

We didn't want to give up our New Year's Eve tradition. Instead of taking the kids to the store to pick out their dinner item, I had them tell me ahead of time what they wanted and had the supplies delivered to our house. Luckily that is an option these days! We used it more than once! This is what our menu ended up being this year: Dad-didn't pick one, since we already had enough. Mom-coconut shrimp only because I thought we would be taking this for Christmas Eve dinner so we already had them in the freezer. This is also what I chose last year. Molly-nachos. Stockton-potstickers. Brynn-French Toast sticks (same as last year). Ivy-spaghetti (same as last year). So, quite the variety! We also had the shirley temple drinks that I have been making for the past few years that the kids enjoy immensely.

I had packed a whole bin of games so we had lots to choose from. We only ended up playing two games that night-Ivy picked Skyjo and then Molly picked Code Names Pictures. Both were new games this year for Christmas-one from me and one from Brett. Stockton picked Clue but we actually didn't play it that night. We had started our Harry Potter movie-thon and worked our way through a couple of those movies that night. I took a shower at some point and then snuggled with Brynn on the bean bag. She struggled off and on to stay awake towards the end but we were all still awake to ring in the new year at midnight!