Christmas Holiday

We have had snow day after snow day here in Ohio! Which has been both fun and exhausting...and a little wild. While I had big plans to get things organized after being away for 2 weeks, instead I was trying to entertain 3 children who were going stir crazy in the house. Hence, nothing got done. At all. And here I am, weeks later, just recapping our holiday break!

So here is our vacation! We went to Pennsylvania to my parents house. We left the day after the kids got out of school and spent about 2 weeks there. It was nice to get time to relax a bit and have some extra hands to help with the kids BUT we were all sick 90% of the trip so that was not so fun. We didn't get to see all the friends we wanted to see or go to all the places we wanted to visit so we didn't share our coughs and runny noses but we did manage to get out of the house a bit!

We played outside a lot, some days it was gorgeous and in the 40s, Most days it was in the 20s and I wasn't too happy to be outside but the kids had fun. We visited their 3 favorite local parks and they were so excited to get back to them.

Obviously, the highlight of the trip was Christmas.

and finding out on Christmas Eve that we're expecting another little girl on Christmas Eve!

A few people asked if we knew before hand or how we did it. No one in our family knew the gender of the baby before Christmas Eve! Not even me or Tom! I had an ultrasound the day before we left and the tech said she could tell the gender. Tom wasn't with me at the ultrasound...he apparently has to work and can't come to my almost weekly OB appointments (yes, weekly, that's what you get when you're in the high risk party club). So I asked the tech to just write it down on an envelope and we would figure out what to do with the information later. So after discussing it, Tom and I decided we could wait a few more days to find out the gender and kept the envelope sealed up. We debated if we wanted to do cupcakes or balloons or when we would do it. When we got to my parents house, I went down to the local florist (where we got our wedding flowers) and gave, no joke, one of the town gossips the envelope with the instructions not to tell anyone, put the balloons in a box we gave her and seal it up tight, we'd be back on Christmas Eve for the box. I was fairly confident someone in town would spill the beans before then but luckily, we were sick so we didn't really talk to or see anyone for the next few days. So Christmas Eve we picked up the box, wrapped it up and then on Christmas Eve after church and dinner, we let the kids open the box! So there you have it! 

Back to our trip, we did a few other fun Christmas favorite activities like riding the train at the mall, decorated gingerbread houses and baked.

 Before we left town, we fit in an early birthday celebration for Benjamin.

The party hats and blowers were a big hit obviously. Excuse Ben's shirtlessness, my brothers were playing too wild with him right after he ate spaghetti. It didn't end well. It was almost bed time so we just winged the rest of the evening shirtless. He's the birthday boy, he can do what he wants.

We had a really fun holiday and were sad to leave town. Even sadder to come back and be trapped in the house with snow and ice outside for a whole week, but we've survived and we're getting back in the routine of school and every day.

Next up on playing catch up: Ben turns 2!