Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Charlie is back to school today and I have a few minutes to myself to remember our adventures over the past few weeks.
For Christmas, we celebrated with the Wysocki side of the family here in Naperville. Seven adults, five boys and one dog. My gift to myself, was a cleaning service the day before everyone arrived. BEST GIFT EVER. Yeah, things are dirty here again but I've never been more relaxed going into the holidays. Knowing that my family wasn't going to be attacked by dust bunnies or dirt worms in their sleep was worth it.
It's crazy how much these little guys have grown in two years…
 |
| Christmas 2013 |
 |
Christmas 2011
|
The weather was nice enough to let the boys go sledding with the men…
while indoors, they got to decorate cookies, enjoy a donut day, build (and eat) a gingerbread house and play tons of games with Mimi.
 |
| Nom |
 |
| Nom |
 |
| Nom |
 |
| Nom |
 |
| This is "the eating" of the gingerbread house... |
 |
| On his way to dream land... |
We traveled to Bass Pro Shop for our annual visit to see Santa Clause on Christmas Eve…but alas, we were greeted with a LONG line of families and "employee elves" handing out the FINAL passes to see Santa for the day. YEP, we had just missed the cutoff (even though we had arrived two hours early.) It didn't seem to bother the boys the way it bothered their MOMS. They enjoyed a carousel, trains, trucks and even got a picture in with Santa…kind of.
 |
| Charlie was a bit confused... |
 |
| Forget Santa…look at these TRAINS |
Christmas Eve even brought another surprise from the North Pole (North Pole, Alaska that is) in the form of Uncle Jeff and Cori waving HELLO via a live feed on the Internet. This was what we captured. LOVED IT!
And then came Christmas morning. The boys raked it in and we want to thank everyone for being so generous.
 |
| Can you spot my new "putter" under the tree!?! Thanks Ted! |
Charlie is still playing with his new train table, play dough, trucks and more.
 |
| So focused. |
And Ben is still discovering new toys that he got for Christmas. SCORE!
 |
| He was ready for a nap after one hour of excitement! |
Christmas may have been over…but we still got to enjoy two more days with our cousins so off to the Ball Factory we went. George and Charlie played pretty hard (along with 200 other Naperville kiddos) and then got to enjoy some ice cream.
 |
| Watching a big boy shoot some balls out of a cannon before it was their turn. |
 |
| BLUE ICE CREAM!!! |
 |
| Nom Nom Nom |
And our final adventure (which has now become tradition) was to the local hibachi restaurant, KIKU, to enjoy some good old Japanese sushi and more. Needless to say it may be a few more years before we have a complete success there…the toddlers are NOT yet fans of cooking with FIRE!
 |
| Poor George |
 |
| Charlie used Dad to cover his eyes when the fire came along... |
It was a fantastic holiday with great memories and amazing food (thanks Steve) and we are looking forward to next year.
 |
| The boys…(with a sick Charlie who did not want to take a picture!) |
And how was our New Years, you ask?!? Well, let's just say 2014 can only go up from here!! I'll leave you with a text from my brother to explain.
Two weeks in and we are all happy and healthy. CHEERS TO 2014! We are off to Kansas for Christmas in one week and we are REALLY looking forward to it. Pictures soon to follow!
