Christmas Break 2017

We are slowly easing back into our regularly scheduled programming. After nine days off together, Ben went back to work yesterday and is already on a trip. The kids return to school (and sports and homework and regular bedtimes and packing lunches and .....) tomorrow. My break from orders needs to end and I need to return to preschool thoughts and regular workouts at the gym and cooking meals instead of all of the fun meals out we've enjoyed over break.

Man was it a lovely break while it lasted.

Things I'd like to remember about our time off-

• our family Christmas on the 23rd. We decorated cookies, opened presents from one another, ate our traditional fun meal at Zia's, went to Traveler's Christmas Eve service at church, and set out cookies and carrots for Santa. 
• watching the kids open their presents from Santa on Christmas Eve morning. Kate got the Muana necklace that I hadn't even known she was hoping for until my friend Kelly asked her two days earlier what she hoped Santa was bringing her for Christmas! Drew got a five pack of Cardinal's tickets. Grace and Luke were blown away with new computers. 
• our Christmas in Decatur was full of family time. My favorite moments were Ugly Christmas Sweater Bowling, sitting around the table at my parent's house eating lasagna, coffee and visiting on Christmas morning, and spending the day relaxing at Patti's. 
• Brewery Lights with the Miller family
• New Year's Eve at the Brewer's house in Springfield
• a lovely date night at Olive + Oak courtesy of Erin and Chad. The food and atmosphere was perfect and my date was pretty great company. 
• We took down a wall in the house. We intended to close off the wall between my office and the living room, but once we started removing the windows currently on that wall, we were astounded by the openness and light that flooded into our dark family room. One thing led to another and we ended up removing the wall we intended to close up. Drew wondered out loud if we should make the new space our dining room and we were intrigued. The space is perfect for a dining room! Lots more work to do, but we are very happy with our spur of the moment decision. 
• Lots of time just watching movies and playing games and reading books while snuggled under blankets or in front of the fireplace. It has been a COLD break!
• a trip to the City Museum. It's not my favorite place as a mom and we picked the busiest day ever to go, but the kids had fun. 
• I enjoyed that the kids had lots of time to get together with friends. There were many sleepovers over the break for the bigs. We met Drew's friend and his family at Myseum yesterday. Luke and Cavin have been together constantly. Luke went with Jude to a party. Gracie and Celia have been inseperable. We have plans to meet lots of friends at the ice rink this morning. Kate has playtime with her bestie, Kendall, this afternoon. It's been a luxury to have this much time to just have fun with people we love.