How We Spent our Winter Vacation

This year, for the first time, Matt was off work for a full ELEVEN days over the winter break, so it really was a family vacation this year!

we decorated

we drove around to enjoy other people's MUCH more elaborate decorations:

(This house belongs to the Hodo family, who live in the next town over from my hometown.)

we made our Christmas gifts to family and friends


we finished up the last of the etsy orders before I shut my shop down for the holidays


the girls received letters from Santa Claus, in answer to their own letters to him




we did a LOT of traveling


we visited my family, ate some fabulous meals, gave them presents, and received some pretty great gifts in return

My Pappaw taped bills to an empty aluminum foil roll, put it back in the box, and had the girls pull out their Christmas money bill by bill--it was a BIG hit!

we came home to a LOT of snow!!!

snug in our comfy house with piles of snow outside, we did a ton of cooking

biscuits

kale pesto and granola

with nowhere we had to go and nothing we had to do, we had a lot of crafty time on our hands

Sydney's rainbow rolled beeswax candle

Willow's clay snowman

my fleece pants for Willow, the Oliver + S Sandbox pants

we played games, in groups of two or three or four

I did NOT accept Matt's blatant cheating at Axis and Allies with good grace!

Crazy Eights

Tsuro

the girls played with toys, both old

and brand-new

This remote-controlled helicopter was a gift from Willow's Poppa and Grandma Janie, and it's amazing. It's too messy still to play with it outside, so Will's been practicing her take-outs and landings.

the girls spent some of their Christmas money

and somehow, supposedly recovering from all those rich Christmas meals, we STILL had a lot of treats

Sydney's suggestion for a family activity one morning consisted simply of "Doughnuts!!!"

Yes, we DID have frozen yogurt for lunch one day!

It was a perfect winter vacation.
It was epic.
It was amazing.
It was everything that I could ever have hoped for.

It was, I hope, one that my girls will keep in their hearts even after they're grown. (Including the part where Sydney heard Santa Claus on the roof and began to cry hysterically. She's going to hear that story every Christmas for the rest of eternity.)