At Home for Christmas

So, it has been a very long time since I have posted anything. Sorry about that. I guess life is just now getting back to "normal". Brian is back in classes and working and Ethan is back at school and is getting ready to start his after school enrichment classes. This year he will be taking a critter craft class, french and chemistry.


We had a great time at home for Christmas. The kids were overwhelmed with excitement and could not wait for Santa to come to our house. Christmas Eve was especially overwhelming. We had dinner at Nana's house and then made our way home quickly to say goodbye to the shelf elf and put cookies and milk out for Santa. We also had to sprinkle reindeer food in the front yard (to attract the reindeer) and put carrots out with the milk and cookies. We really enjoyed spending Christmas with our family and it was really nice to spend more than 2 or 3 days at home.

So, with every trip home comes the packing! Our problem with being home for Christmas was that the kids of course wanted ALL of their presents to make it back to the "Baby House". As most of you know, we drive a Honda Civic. This car is not the roomiest of cars, especially with two kids and two cats in tow.

For all of you curious people out there. What can you fit into a Honda Civic. Here you go:

-2 adults, 2 children in carseats, 2 cats in cat carriers, four winter coats, 2 laptops, an amazon kindle, a livescribe pen with 4 notebooks, 1 extra large underarmor duffel bag filled to the brim with clothes, 2 large kids duffel bags stuffed to the brim with clothes and one small duffel bag filled with shoes, a matchbox space shuttle, the entire playmobil castle and every accessory that goes with it, 5 sets of playmobil fairy world things, a lego helicopter set, a breyer horse barn and 6 horses that go with it, a playmobil cargo truck, a pink tag reading system with five books, a green tag reading system with five books, 2 artist drawing tablets and two very special pens that came with them, 6 gi joes, a huge gi joe plane and a gi joe tank, batman, a nintendo wii, 3 controllers, 2 wii wheels, 8 wii games, a wii fit board, a go anywhere girls dance studio, go anywhere girls house, go anywhere girls pool house, go anywhere girls bus and ice cream truck, a tub of pop together beads, a battleship game, a my little pony and her remote controlled scooter, 2 binders of dvd's, 2 nintendo ds's, 6 new ds games, a "You, the Owners Manual" book, a cinderella play set, 4 pairs of dress up shoes, a bag full of play jewelry, a highlights calendar, a playmobil cement truck, a playmobil work truck, a playmobil dump truck, a playmobil construction set, a playmobil fire car, a gymboree bag full of pictures, mail and other things, a bag of diapers, a diaper bag, Brian's underarmor backpack filled to capacity, a kids laptop in a pink stephen joseph backpack, an Ariel head with hair accessories, 10 my little pony play sets, and one Operation game.

I think that might be it. I am sure I left something out but I think you get the point! See, we don't need a bigger car. By the way, I never said that any of us could actually BREATH during the drive home.

One last little tidbit of Christmas . . . Ethan and Tabitha both made candy houses. Ethan made his during school and Tabitha made hers during the visit we had with Santa at Ethan's school before Christmas. Here is one of the houses . . .

I am going to try to get cracking on more posts. I promise not to slack any more! Have a great Valentine's Day!