It's a perfect day!: Home for Christmas Part One!

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to blog at least once a week… today is the 7^th so here it goes!

Dahl and I went home to Maryland for Christmas and it was wonderful! Here are some highlights of the first half (some of these details may be out of order or on the wrong days… but they all happened):

1. Thursday: We flew home on a flight that started at 6 AM! Sarah tried to get me to watch Cars 2- I fell asleep.

2. Friday: We went to watch Sarah’s basketball scrimmage. It was incredibly entertaining, especially when she got mad at some girl and shoved her out of the way (but got away with it)! She is an aggressive one! Even more entertaining perhaps, was Heather’s constant attacks on my dad’s eyebrows documented below:

You don't touch my eyebrows!

Just a little hair...

Never!!

Now you stay away from me!

That's it! I'm changing seats!

No Daddy come back! I won't hurt you!!

(Hehe yes I will)

Seriously I promise! Just sit down!

This is my body not yours! You keep your dang hands off!

I will Daddy.

Look at what your husband has to look forward to! When your mother tried to pluck my eyebrows I had a Hitler-stache for an eyebrow!

Alright I'll sit back down but you better keep your dang hands to yourself!

I guess this is a constant plague upon my poor father-- apparently Heather is no longer allowed to sit next to him in church because every time he falls asleep he receives a rude awakening as either his nose hairs or his eyebrows are being forcefully plucked from his face! Also on Friday, I tried to watch Smurfs with Sarah and fell asleep. And Dahl got caught up in an intense match of Stratego with Jacob and Joseph—full of rule-changing and making up—that lasted for hours. Oh yeah, and here's Sarah at her game:

3. Saturday: Christmas Eve. The older kids became Santa’s elves and help mom get everything wrapped up. We followed traditions from both my family and Dahl’s: From mine we listened the “The Little Shepherd”. From his, we read “That Thine Alms may be in Secret” and “A Christmas Dress for Ellen” and watched “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

4. Sunday: Christmas! We performed our “surprise” play like usual- Dahl was an amazing Spanish- speaking Mexican. We opened presents and went to church, and just relaxed together as a family. We had our usual Santa treasure hunt and ate Monkey Bread and Oatmeal for breakfast.

5. Monday: The whole family minus Dad went to Mt. Vernon. I am a huge George Washington fan, so I loved it. We took a tour of his home, went to his grave site, walked around his gorgeous estate, watched a few movies about him, and met Aladdin the friendly camel. We came home and watched home videos (hopefully coming soon to a Facebook near you) and The Help (love that movie!). Mom made some amazing apple pie which we all appreciated immensely!

Haha note how Julie looks like a "little person" (or however the politically correct way is to say it).

6. Tuesday: The original plan was to go to DC for the day, but weather changed those quickly. We in no way allowed that to make it a downer! We opted for a relaxing day at home (if that is even possible considering our household). Dahl and I went on a date to Ledo’s, and because of a mix-up ended up with double the pizza we ordered for the same price, so we brought some home to share. Then we took all of the kids (except for Sarah) to Rita’s.

Ritas!

We also played Just Dance, which was super fun. The second I saw that game I knew it was made for my family! Then we watched Taken and I watched Alias with my sisters (best show ever, hurry up Netflix!)

7. Wednesday: We relaxed in the morning and watched LOTR. I fell asleep, but only for a little (anyone sensing a pattern?). We went to the temple as a family. The kids did baptisms and we did sealings with my parents. We haven’t done sealings since our own so it was really nice. Then we went to the Visitor’s Center to a dance concert. We thought it was doing to be some professional international dance company but it turned out to just be some kids and their teachers (who, it seems, only created the school so they could perform) which was a disappointment but one we found immensely amusing.