I’ve been off from work for a full week now. Which is awesome- but, like most good things, it has gone by too fast. I got teary eyed in the car yesterday looking at the neighborhood Christmas lights with the kids knowing that they’ll be taken down soon. A sap? Why yes, I am!

I have no idea how to sum up such a fantastic Christmas! We celebrated Christmas 5 times this year with various family members from near and far. Some were fancy with big turkey dinners and others were more low key with pizza and wings. All of them were a lot of fun from start to finish. The kiddos were rock stars all through the holidays- a minor miracle when you consider the major meltdown both kids had on the 23rd because it wasn’t Christmas yet! Santa was very very good to us all in so many ways.

Here are a few random observations from the past week:

1) Beaner can eat her body weight in dinner rolls. Which is a good thing since it was the only thing she ate at 3 out of our 5 Christmas celebrations.

2) I shouldn’t have spent all the time stressing to ensure both kids had the same amount of gifts. Scorch opened all of his in 5 minutes and Bean got half way through and stopped because she wanted to play with what she had and couldn’t be bothered to keep going.

3) The gifts that I thought were going to be the biggest hits this year (dinosaur habitat for Scorch/Tinkbell doll for Bean) weren’t. Instead Scorch loves his $5 magnifying glass more then anything and Bean won’t take her new backpack off.

4) Getting a recording of the Story of Christmas read to the kids from their great-grandparents (one of whom is in poor health) made me cry.

5) Christmas without my sister and TBO is not right. I’ve only ever spent one other Christmas not with Red in my life, so it’s odd not having them around. Thankfully Baby L is still doing great and next Christmas with all 3 of them will be awesome!

6) Instead of starting the business we did 4 years ago, the Hubs & I should have opened a bounce house place. Those places make a killing (in large part to my kids).

7) I’m not a fan of Playdough. The Bean will play for hours every day- but the fun to work ratio (digging it out of carpets & her mouth) just isn’t worth it in my book.

8) I’m really, really, really going to miss hearing the Bean yell “Christmas- I yike Christmas!” each time she sees a tree or lights or a Santa.

360 more days and counting until we can do it all over again!