Christmas Recap (AKA Picture Overload)

Hello friends!  Did you all have a nice Christmas?  We did, though it ended up much different than we were originally planning.  I thought I'd recap it all today - warning - it's going to be picture overload!

So the best gift of all was waking up on Christmas Eve morning to this smiling face and having him pretty much be back at 100% health wise.  He started finally eating well again on Christmas Eve and we were just so thankful.

Unfortunately, Nate's parents were both down with nasty bugs, so we got a call from them early in the day that they felt it was in our best interest to cancel our annual Christmas Eve dinner and celebration with them so that they could rest and get better and not re-expose Oliver to any germs. So we found ourselves suddenly having no plans on Christmas Eve, but we made the most of it.  We had lunch out at a Mexican restaurant with Ollie after Nate got home from work.  We picked up some fixings to make up a few snacks to nosh on for dinner and invited Nate's sister and her boyfriend over for a drink.  We ended up having a lovely evening with wine, snacks, the Yule Log on TV, a happily sleeping baby and some Cards Against Humanity played.  Not our usual celebration, but honestly, I kind of enjoyed it, it was pretty dang relaxing!

Christmas morning came and of course Santa had come to our house.  Oliver absolutely loves his new play kitchen that we bought him.  We didn't try to wrap it, we set it up after he went to bed and just brought him out to see it first thing on Christmas morning.  He crawled right over and started banging away on it immediately.  He knew it was just for him and he loved it.

After his morning nap we headed to my parents for lunch and to open gifts with them.  Oliver made out like a bandit, he has lots of fun new toys to play with when he goes to Grandma Daycare now! We headed back home after a couple of hours so Ollie could take another nap.  We were supposed to have a celebration with Nate's extended family late in the afternoon, but once again, sickness caused plans to be delayed.  So, we had a nice low key afternoon and evening at home.  Nate made us some pork chops and delicious broccoli for dinner and we kept our normal evening routine of watching a couple of shows and getting to bed at a reasonable time since Nate still had to work on Friday morning.

I was lucky enough to be off of work on Friday and it was so nice to be home with Oliver when neither of us were sick for a change!  We went to Stride Rite to get him his first good pair of shoes, we're hoping this will help encourage him to try walking some more.  After we got home, Nate called and said he was getting off work early and wanted to know if we wanted to meet him for lunch.  So we met up at our favorite restaurant.

The rest of Friday was pretty low key again, we watched movies and chilled at home.  Saturday we decided Ollie was getting a little stir crazy and decided to take him back over to the Children's Museum for a little while.  I was a little hesitant since we just got him over this nasty virus and worried a little about him picking up more germs, but then I realized, we can't keep him in a bubble either.  And he had so much fun, we pretty much hung in the water room this time and he thought it was the best thing ever.

After the museum we stopped for some lunch and then he took a great nap which was good since we had rehearsal in the early evening with our music group and I hadn't lined up a babysitter.  Ollie had a blast crawling all over the church while we set up Nate's drums and sang through a few things.

Sunday morning we had mass while Nate's sister hung at home with Oliver.  After mass I had a chance to meet up with some of the Beer Advent ladies (who also happen to be fellow MN bloggers) at a brewery I hadn't been to before - Urban Growler in St. Paul.  Delicious beer.  We each ordered a flight - I can promise I didn't quite finish it though, usually I have Nate to help me!

Then Sunday afternoon we finally had our Christmas celebration with Nate's extended family.  We had some appetizers and played the White Elephant dice game.  Ollie had fun watching his older cousins play and laughing at Nate's aunt and uncle's dog.
So it was a good and full extended weekend of celebrating.  I was sad that so much of our family was dealing with illness and causing plans to change, but at the same time, it was really a very nice Christmas in the end.
I also wanted to share an outfit today.  I had a gift card to Target so I treated myself to some new goodies over the weekend too.  New boots, sweater and yes, a purse.  Yep.  I have a problem.  But I had a gift card.  And I love that Coach bag I've been carrying but it feels very holiday like, so I was ready for a change.

Sweater - Mossimo (Target), Pants - Old Navy

Boots and Purse - Merona (Target)

Necklace - Lia Sophia 

Whew.  So that brings us to today, back to work, back to normal schedules.  I'm pretty much working every day but New Year's Day this week.  I'll have some year end reflections on the blog this week and maybe some other recaps too.  Stay tuned!  And if you're lucky enough to still be enjoying time off, enjoy it for me!