Holidays 2021

 Well the holiday season of 2021 is over. We had a great one this year. For Christmas we made to Umma and Uppa's after some heavy snow on the pass. The kids say over and over again their favorite part of Christmas is seeing all the family, of course that warms my heart. Amelia got to spend two days at Tanya's before Christmas. She loved that but her energy was really missed at Umma and Uppa's. It was great to see her on Christmas Eve, when the Martinson's showed up. Amelia was excited to share that John drove 112 on the freeway in Tanya's Telsa. I could see the boys were very envious of that!

Christmas Eve was just so much fun. After a unanimous request to play the fishing game, Umma and Uppa brought it back. The kids love the fishing game and the nostalgia of it.  We also played the brain teasers. Those were fun because we were working in teams. What a great way to work together and build family memories and bonds. 

Christmas morning, we gave the kids a dog collar, leash and dog toy. We told them we were getting a puppy later in January. They were all very excited about it. I told them that on Monday we were going to go pick out the puppy from a litter, that really got them excited. Later in the morning, Jack came into to talk with me about a problem he had. He said, "Mom, I have a problem. I feel like if we get another puppy, we will be trying to replace Skipper." I could see his heart was hurting over this. We talked about how we wouldn't be replacing or betraying Skipper because we could never replace Skipper. I also told him that what he was feeling was totally normal; if he wasn't ready to get a new puppy we could wait. I could see he was physically relieved after we talked. (And just as a spoiler, once he saw the puppy, we are going to get he fell in love).

On New Year's Eve we went to our friend the Schonewills. We used to go to their New Year's Eve Party every year but hadn't the last couple of years because of COVID. It was so nice to be able to go this year. The kids were so happy to continue the tradition. We stayed till midnight. We didn't see the kids hardly at all, only when they stopped by for food. Most of the evening they were hanging out with the other kids in the garage or other rooms.