The Range

After music lessons today we headed over to Stanford’s driving range for the kids to get some use out of their new golf clubs.  It was packed and cold but great to see them all out there practicing!  I see golf lessons for everyone in our future.  

Gifts & Pancake Art

 We've had such mellow fun the last two days playing with all of our new toys.   Golf was a big theme this holiday, with the girls receiving special clubs from Lee and Bill, and bags from us, and Jake receving a putting green thingy and a movable 9 hole putting game.   Needless to say, thankfully a bag of foam balls were delivered as well, as the kids have been putting throughout the house!

The kids also received a Nintendo Switch from Santa this year.   We have been anti video games in our home to date, but with this pandemic still continuing into the winter season, we decided to go for it but only with two active games.  The first is a dance game, which has been a big hit- the kids danced for two hours straight yesterday and are at it again today.   There are hundreds of preset songs and accompanying dances, and while holding a contoller, you have to follow the steps and earn points.   They can all do it together too which is a big win.   

This morning we pulled out the new pancake art kit and spent 1.5 hours designing incredible, colorful pancakes!

Merry Christmas!!

 Well, it certainly strange not having our traditional extended family holiday dinner this year, but it ended up being a wonderful day anyway, and the kids got to stay in their PJs for the entire day!

On Christmas Eve, is has become tradition for the girls to pull our Jake's trundle bed and sleep next to him for the night.   The girls swear that they awake every Christmas Eve around 4:00am to the sounds of thumps on the roof, and they want Jake near them.   Thankfully, Jake is still ok with this tradition, and he put on the Grinch on his computer and they all watched it together while falling asleep as I wrapped and sorted downstairs.  

Per the kid's promise, they held out until 7:00am on Christmas morning before coming downstairs.  As we sat down to admire all that Santa had delivered, the most magnificant sunrise came up right outside of our front window- what a start to the day! 

(look at that sunrise out the window- it looks like fire!!)

After opening their stockings, the kids wanted to give out the gifts that they purchased for each other first before the rest of our opening continued.   They used their own money this year to buy special items for each other, and wrote cards too!!  

Josh's big gift; a guitar!!   

Breakfast was fresh waffles with whipped cream and chocolate chips (and bananas for me!)

We were able to use the Portal to call into Morocco and wish my sister's family a Merry Christmas, followed by a call to the Hutners for some Christmas morning wishes.   

For lunch we pulled out the rarely used fondue pot for some fresh bread and cheese dipping! 

This fuzz face got an enormous amount of cuddles this Christmas after our little scare earlier in the week.  

The afternoon was filled with opening our new gifts, playing games and Josh tuning up his new guitar.  I didn't catch any photos of dinner, but we cooked up some steak that Josh received from his business partners in Omaha and made up a bunch of sides.  For dessert we decided to keep the fondue pot out and melted up some good chocolate and had a fondue dipping bar this year.     

What a day it was.  We are so blessed to be healthy and safe this season.  We feel fortunate to have most of our family close by as well, and while being distant isn't as fun during the holidays, we are one of the few we know who got to celebrate with extended family this year in some capacity.   Facetime and the Portal certainly were a huge help this year as well.

 

Merry, Merry Christmas dear family and friends!  

Fredrikson Exchange

 Ack...already falling behind!  Ok, so the day following our lovely gift exchange with the Goines side, we headed up to Kings Mountain for lunch and gift exchange with the Fredrikson side of the family.   It ended up being a sunny day, so lunch on the deck and opening presents outside all worked out again- great timing with both sets of grandparents as the rain came on Christmas!

Again, we were all spoiled with generous gifts.   Thank you Nana and Granddaddy for all of the thoughtful gifts and treats!

We were able to get one round of croquet in before it chilled down- Colbie was the winner!