Catching up....

Well, we survived the holidays and lived to tell about it.  A lot has been happening around here and I will do my best to try to remember all the fun and merriment.  Of course, I will not be including the things that were not fun and did not include any merriment, because who wants to remember that!  The holiday started with a visit from my brother Cody from Japan.  He is currently living in Kyoto teaching English.  He brought his girlfriend Kazuyo home to meet everyone and it was so fun getting to know her.  We exchanged gifts and had a nice dinner together.  We got all kinds of cool stuff from Japan including some awesome new music, chopsticks, various food items, yummy Japanese teas, brown tea kit kats, as well as a few other fun things. Kasuyo presented each of us with a thoughtful gift as well.  It was so much fun and we can't wait to spend more time with them both. Kazuyo was a delightful girl and I am so happy for my little brother.   After Cody's visit, we got busy preparing for  Christmas Eve and Day festivities.  The girls baked cookies for Santa while I baked and cooked for Christmas day.  I decided to delegate the cooking duties this year so each of the girls also prepared something for Christmas dinner.  On Christmas Eve we headed out to hike Soladad Canyon and it we had amazing hiking weather.  We had the usual breakfast for dinner on Christmas eve and ended the evening with lights and gift opening.  As usual, we made gifts for each other and they were so sweet.  Emma made me a sign for my garden and weeded and cleaned the whole area out for me.  She also worked hard on writing each of us a personalized poem and they were fantastic.  Hannah made a few really nice things for each of us and also presented us each with a heartfelt Christmas letter. Rachel surprised us with homemade candied almonds which were a big hit.  She also made some homemade honey face scrubs which were awesome. Various coupons were exchanged between sisters for borrowing each others clothes whenever they want. Matt was his usual sweet self and presented us all with coupons for time spent doing our favorite things with him...he also gave each of the girls a cute necklace.  The night was a wonderful reminder of how thoughtful the girls are and I so appreciated all the sweet things they gave us and each other.  Christmas Day was spent opening gifts from Santa, eating yummy cinnamon rolls, and playing new games.  For dinner we invited the Salas Family to join us and enjoyed a feast.  It was the same feast we always have so I wont repeat it :)....  we did add pumpkin pudding with gingersnaps to the list this year though and it is most definitely a keeper!  We are now going to hunker down and enjoy all the down time before school starts.  It has been so nice to just relax and hang out together.

Cody and Kazuyo

Charades