Ten on Tuesday

I haven't done 10 on Tuesday in awhile so I worked backwards from today and picked the first 10 photos I wanted to talk about.  Here we go. 

 1.  Christmas Eve we went to see Star Wars in 3D with Grandma.  For the kids and I, it was our second time seeing the movie (first in 3D).  We all loved it.  We're also reading a lot of Star Wars books, playing Star Wars characters in Disney Infinity, building Star Wars LEGO sets, and listening to the soundtrack in the car. Tis the Star Wars season here!

 2. We celebrated our first New Year's Eve in this house.  We're still working on traditions, but did honor some old ones like Ginger Ale, pretzels, and cheez-its just like we used to have when I was a kid.  We also did the Netflix count down to King Julien.

 3.  We started a new tradition of letting the kids sleep under the Christmas tree.  We'd been searching for a good day for that and NYE seems perfect.  We had the kids lay down not too long past their regular bedtime and let them take an hour and a half or so to work towards sleep.  We checked on them sometimes if things got too rowdy, but mostly let them work it out themselves.  Hooray for sibling bonding and new traditions.

 4.  The next day, we began our year with a drive to Tulsa to hang out with friends who missed the Christmas Tea.  When visiting Wainrights there is always a lot of game playing.  Brent & B especially love this and I think B is learning a lot from a few of my favorite gamers, and favorite guys. Loved having this crew back together with Palfreymans in town from Florida too.  Hooray for good friends I've now known half my life! It is extra lovely that our children love each other and all the adults too.  One big happy family.

 5. The next day was Maia's 2nd birthday party.  One of the activities was this rice bin that was filled with treasures to dig for, but also good to just relax in, apparently, as E rested in here several times. Also note the cute mask M has - Chrissie made cool masks of maybe 4 different animals.  Love them!

 6. Magformers are awesome and the Wainrights have the best collection.  They are not at all cheap so I keep not buying them as the price is daunting, but they are so awesome. I've decided to just start buying a bit at a time and eventually maybe we'll have a cool collection too as people of all ages like them and they are great, great fun.  Here is M's most recent creation from casa Wainright.

 7.  In December, Zach (my brother-in-law) built us this coat rack/storage area for us for Christmas. I managed to find baskets that just fit from World Market.  For all of December it was crammed with coats, bags, etc... This view was Monday with kids gone back to work and it seemed pretty empty and real that vacation was over.  Glad to have this, but sad to see everyone go.

 8. This is where I started my back to work life.  Working from the living room with the Christmas tree and fireplace crackling while learning about my new "work book."  Transition is being a bit rough for many people at our house.  If only we could just hang out together daily?

 9. It has been penguin week at E's school.  We came home Monday and started a hunt for our penguins and penguin books.  He knows several cute little songs and bits of info.  Great fun.

10.  Yesterday was Ephiphany and I made a galette des rois for the first time.  It is a pastry traditional to northern France.  It was my first time making it.  Generally, it was tasty.  It wasn't overly sweet or overly complicated.  A nice end to the formal Christmas season although we do still have one more Christmas at the farm this weekend....