Slog through the blog

I always feel this way after Christmas.  It doesn't help that I'm 10 days into the worst flu/infection/cough/cold I've ever had in my life.  But I'm sitting here doing nothing, so I might as well get through our annual Luke week-long fiesta.

Grandma Dorothy was here for the festivities.  Nadia loves Rowan and Grandma too much to pick sides in a tug of war.


The night before...

 Santa's offerings.

If two words had to sum up our Christmas, it would be Legos and books.  Both kids made out Christmas lists that mostly contained lego something or other.

With all those lego sets, I'm glad we got these lego organizers.  Here's hoping they stay organized!

 Elsa asked on her Christmas wish list for her two front teeth and a chew toy.  She got her two bottom front teeth just a day or two before Christmas!

Mom made the kids some Minecraft T-shirts.  She knows them too well.

 Lego, lego, lego.  And they love it.

In no particular order, here's a bunch of thank you videos for the Luke side of our family.  We didn't get every gift recorded, but they were all appreciated!  Thank you!!

Aunt Chandy





The Walches


The games were a big hit.  Rowan even chose the Hot Potato game as his mystery toy to school.  He made up some riddles with Steve and thoroughly stumped his class.

Grandma + Grandpa Luke (we didn't differentiate the birthday presents from the Christmas-  Sorry!)




Steve got a Sodastream machine from me.  I was pretty proud of myself for the deal I scored and for how much he loves it.  Steve was a little more thoughtful and made me a table for a dollhouse that I got for Nadia (and me) from Goodwill.  I needed something to keep it out of Elsa's hands and it's perfect.  It even turns!  Right now Nadia has some Fisher Price dollhouse furniture in it, but I'd love to get involved in making miniatures and deck it out like the ones you see in the library when she gets older.  The one at our library downtown has I Spy lists that you can get to try and find all the items in it.  It's awesome!  I'd love to decorate it with a Sherlock Holmes flavor.  Steve has plans to help me get some lighting going in it in the meantime and I've started the process of ripping out wallpaper and fixing it up.

This Christmas was very nice, but I've decided to do some things different next year.  So I made some Christmas resolutions so that the spirit of Christmas might be stronger in our home next year.  The first is to not yard sale for Christmas or birthday gifts.  Actually to not yard sale for toys at all- we have too much.  I found my kids are starting to have clear ideas of what they want and it's too crazy to adhere to their lists and my deals that I've found.  The second is to keep it to 3 gifts per child and liken it to the wise men.  With the birthdays and Christmas so close, they get so much all at once that I don't think my kids don't appreciate it enough.  Lastly, I want to involve my kids in more service next year.  We usually go through the toys and do a toy dump where we donate what we aren't using, but I feel like we should be doing more.  If you are still with me at this point, I'd love to hear any and all of your suggestions of what makes Christmas special for your family.