Fun times at Christmas

  We had a fun and relaxing Christmas time. Ken took the day off on Christmas Eve. We had a lot of fun spending the day playing games. Ken and Jonathan wanted to play Risk and Mara and I decided to join them. Aaron and Megan opted for their own faster (Risk can be a very long game!) "Risk" game on a puzzle map.

I actually won the game of Risk for the first time ever. Ken always wins so that was quite a surprise.

Then we played "Settler's of Catan" ( a new favorite of ours) and I won that one too. A good day for winning! :-)

 That evening we went over to the home of a family from church to play broom ball. We had fun getting some good exercise in the brisk fresh air. I also spent some time inside admiring the 2 brand new babies that were there (and visiting).

  On Christmas morning we opened presents. We just exchange gifts with our immediate family and everything has to fit in a stocking- so gift opening is not an incredibly long process but we do enjoy it. (And I am again this year very happy with the way we have chosen to do things- it works well for us.)

 We "Cheated" a bit on the Lego's to make them fit. We took them out of the boxes and collapsed the boxes. They waste so much space in packaging. I had found the Lego's on sale for by one set get the other one for 1/2 price. Legos are well loved at our place and the boys were very happy with that gift.

I had fun crocheting stuff for the girls and their dolls and they seemed to really like it.

 The kids had fun watching a "Volcano" which was one of Aaron's gifts.

 I made our traditional "Vanocka Braid" bread and then we had sausage, whipped cream fruit salad and hot chocolate (stirred with a candy cane!) for breakfast.

 For lunch we headed over to my parents house. All of us but one sister and her family (who we missed!)were home this year and we had a fun time being together.

An event of the day that I found a little humorous was a brother-in-law accidentally messed up the Wi-Fi in the house. My Brother and Sister-in-Law worked hard to get it fixed. In the picture below they had things propped up in a room and working away as I think the table was being used for other things- like eating.

 It did eventually get fixed. And life could go on again. :-)

 My adorable little niece got a bath in the sink.

We had leftover potatoes from lunch and no room for them in the fridge so we made up a big batch of lefse. It was yummy.

The next day we had everybody over to our house for lunch after church.The kids had fun trying to ice skate on the snowy swamp behind our house. They had to do a lot of shoveling first. I do enjoy being able to spend time with family!

 How was your Christmas?