Christmas Vacation all the way to New Years

We had a wonderful Christmas this year and really, since our Christmas Vacation started early, I figured I would just do one big blog post from the beginning of our Christmas Vacation all the way up to New Years. 

This was our first year staying home for Christmas and it was amazing. It was nice not having to worry about traveling, about gifts being torn to shreds flying, or driving an obnoxious amount of hours. I do admit I missed family, I missed the snow, but us Lancaster's tend to have a pretty good time with just our little family wherever we are, and we had a very Merry Christmas indeed. 

Starting from the beginning.. Be warned, this is a doozy of a blog post! 

Dan's vacation actually started the Friday before Christmas, so we have had a lot of days with daddy being home and it has been extraordinary! We love when daddy's home. 

Thursday night we got the kids to bed and enjoyed the quiet and coziness of our house. Dan fell asleep with Range. I finished watching our Christmas movie and then it was off to bed for both of us. 

Since we had a lot of free days, we prepared ourselves for lots of days at play places and parks. These two were being so funny together. 

I don't have to tell you how adorable this mister is... 

Friday night, we went to the Frisco Town Square, an annual tradition of ours that I LOVE!! We have done it ever since we have lived in Dallas. It's one of my favorite traditions as a family. 

June was singing Jingle bells and Owen couldn't take his eyes away from the lighted tree, so this was our picture this year in front of the tree. 

We spent a lot of time at the water fountain throwing coins in and making wishes. 

We had dinner at our usual Thai food restaurant, which was delicious as every year is. We walked out and it was fake snowing. They had blowers, blowing out fake snow on the square, it looked so real!! It made my heart skip a beat! I loved it and June had fun trying to catch the snow flakes. 

After walking around for a while, we headed back to the car and put the kiddos in pajamas since we knew they would fall asleep on the way home. It was a very fun night and I look forward to next year!

We had our lazy days too of playing and reading books

The Sunday before Christmas was our Christmas program at church. I got the kids dressed up in their Christmas Sunday Clothes and attempted a picture. Owen does not hold still for anything, so he was on the move. He's awesome. 

Our Sunday was good. I had the opportunity to sing a solo in our Sacrament meeting. It was a beautiful piece arranged by an amazingly talented lady in our ward. The Piano piece was amazing, and I was offered the chance to sing with it. 

Sunday night we went and drove around Highland village downtown Dallas. Another tradition that we have. These houses are MANSIONS! True mansions, and they decorate their houses so fun. June loved riding on daddy's lap while we drove through the neighborhood. 

playing during the day. By the end of the season there were hardly any bows and tags left on our gifts. 

June watching cartoons in the most uncomfortable position ever. 

Monday we played at the park. The weather was really nice, and I kinda hated it. It was 3 days from Christmas! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE COLD!!! The kids had fun though, so that's all that counts... it's just kinda is sad that they might not get to experience the joy of playing in the big snow piles, or building forts... Skiing, snow machining, all the things I loved growing up... The north is looking better and better. Ask me again in June and July when I'm soaking in our pool. I'm sure I will love Texas again then! hahaha (Such a complainer) lame. 

Owen was laughing so hard when Dan was pretending to get kicked by Owen. He thought it was hilarious. 

Later that night we went to our friends the Watson's house to have a friend Christmas party before we all departed for the holidays. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner and let the kids play. 

We all then exchanged gifts with each other. The girls were loving it. 

Owen got a few things too! We are excited for Amanda to have her baby boy in February so we have another boy to play with. 

They are my favorite. 

It was a really fun night of chitchat, laughing and just hanging out. The kids got to stay up way later than normal, but we have the holidays as an excuse for poor eating and late nights right?! 

Tuesday was my birthday. My very first birthday not having to travel or being with other family members. It was really nice, quiet and to be totally selfish, I got to do whatever I wanted. How a birthday should be. 

Dan woke up really early and decorated the house. He's the greatest. 

supposedly it was PJ and not Dan

We went bowling that morning. I love to bowl and June liked pushing the bowling ball down the dinosaur tail. 

He was being so funny sitting on his chair. I'm not even sure what he is laughing at here, but he was a little wired and would laugh at anything. 

I made my first pinwheel. Only a very select few of you will know what that means. I felt very proud that I made my first one on my 28th birthday. I had to make one. I MUST carry on the traditional pinwheel with my family. It's been in my family for generations now, and it won't be missed! Mendenhall Represent! 

I'm not a huge fan of cake, or chocolate cake... Ok lets be honest, I HATE CHOCOLATE CAKE! It's one of those few things I can say that I actually hate. hahaha

So every year my mom would make me an angel food cake. Dan was awesome and made me one. He knew I was missing home a bit and he definitely knew how to help! 

I was really excited because I finally got my "O" for my necklace. These charms are not easy to come by. It's a company in New York called Helen Ficalora. I was SHOCKED that he had gotten one for me! It feels like my neck is complete... 

Later that night we went and bought a few gifts for the missionaries. A girl in our ward was throwing them a Christmas party so we wanted to make sure to get them something. 

We went and had dinner at Olive Garden. I have been eating at Olive Garden for my birthday for as long as I can remember. Olive Garden back in the day was only available in Salt Lake, UT. Well growing up, all my siblings, (along with myself later on) always had a choir or orchestra concert down in Utah over my birthday, so we would always eat at Olive Garden. 

As you can tell we are kinda big on traditions. Hahaha 

Wednesday was Christmas Eve. 

We started our prep for our Christmas Dinner. One of June's favorite things is to wash really anything in the kitchen  sink. 

She arranged the vegi tray all on her own. She was so proud. We were missing a few vegi's but we had to leave it. She was just too excited about it. 

Christmas Eve dinner. We usually have dinner by candle light, but with little kiddos we had dinner relatively early so we could do all Christmas Eve festivities and then get them to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour. 

Santa wrote June and Owen back so they knew he got their letters. (Thanks "Santa"!) We read them before we started dinner. 

We got dinner all cleaned up, babes in the bath and then we were ready for our Christmas Eve night to begin. 

We all opened new pajamas and changed into them. 

Once we were all comfy we sat down and Dan read from Luke 2. We then watched a special Nativity movie that we have. 

Our Christmas pajamas!

We left out pinwheel for Santa and egg nog, and tucked the kids in and they were out cold. 

Dan and I wanted to make sure they were very sound asleep before Santa came. June has a tendency to wander out of her room.

Setting up Santa.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE playing Santa. I really do try and keep it reasonable, even ask Dan, I tell him every year I promise to not go overboard. He always laughs and hugs me, telling me he doubts that. He's always right. Hahaha he knows me so well. 

So they both got new chairs and books, along with just fun other stuff, like puzzles, candy, coloring stuff, so on and so forth. 

Christmas morning came and June was ready to go by 5:30am. She came into our room really wanting to see if Santa came, we convinced her to lay down with us for a bit and she ended up falling back asleep until about 7. 

We really wanted to wait for Owen to wake up, but that kid has magical sleeping powers where he sleeps FOREVER, and plus he had a cold, so we let him sleep and we decided to head out to see what Santa brought. 

JUNE WAS THRILLED AND OVER THE MOON! 

This marks the first Christmas of over excitement and the thrill of Santa coming! Oh man it's the best watching her face!

Owen woke up a little later so we were able to let him see his Santa gift as well and play with a few of his stocking toys. 

It's never to early to chomp an Oreo. 

We knew June would love her chair to read books, play with the iPad and all that. Owen, we were a little hesitant on, but he ended up loving it. Turns out the kid will actually sit still in it. He loves climbing it and feels like such a big boy. Dan and I both agreed best Santa gift yet for out kids. 

The kids played for a little while and then we decided we should probably open the gifts under the tree. At that point, thats when you realize you went over the top. Haha 

My sister in law made our entire family slippers. She's incredibly talented at knitting and I just couldn't get over how adorable these slippers are! I am actually wearing mine as we speak! They are my favorite. 

Grandma and Grandpa Lancaster got June some play sand. It's kinda like play doe but way more awesome! It's been an everyday play since Christmas! 

Owen got a jungle that sings and talks to you, turns out June loves it way more. Good thing they share toys right! 

We were lazy all day. Kids stayed in pajamas and we watched cartoons, ate leftovers and enjoy Christmas. 

Dan and I finished up our 1000 piece Christmas puzzle. 

 The day after Christmas we had a few returns we had to make, and we felt it probably would be good to get some fresh air, so we took the kids to the mall to do returns, eat lunch and then play at the play place for a bit. 

Owen's new little race track. 

We went and played at the park. 

Dan took June to a movie just him and her. Matching shirts and all. 

We played a lot outside! One good thing comes out of the warm weather is all the playing outside!

Nana and Papa Mendenhall got June a new scooter. We thought she would need some time with it, but she picked it up quick!

Just a normal day for us. Lots of dress up. June told me I was a ninja fairy and she was super Juney Princess. 

Just continuing being the most awesomest around town. Jean jacket and all. 

We let Owen play with the play doe. He mostly tried to eat it, but once we stopped him a handful of times he actually started squishing it and playing... then he tried to eat it again. 

She came in one morning ready for breakfast, but crawled into bed with me and asked me to scratch her back and sing songs. Put her back to sleep for a couple hours. It was a great!

More days at the play place. June went and sat next to Owen and they just kind of hung out like this for a bit. 

I wish this picture could really show how many birds are at this intersection. It's crazy bird central!

New Years Eve.

We spent the day playing with all our Christmas toys, watching movies and really just relaxing. Our original plan was to spend New Years at a couple of parties we were invited to, but we opted out and decided to stay home and party with June. We decided that we would let June stay up as late as she wanted. Honestly we didn't know how long she would last but we were excited to find out!

We played Uno Moo a bunch of times. Our favorite game. No word of lie, June is SUPER good at it. Seriously, she wins a lot and we don't rig it for her either. 

Getting ready for the countdown. 

We celebrated with sparkling cider, horns, and yelling as loud as we could. Along with little poppers and streamers. I was surprised Owen didn't wake up. We were pretty loud. We watched the ball drop and cheered!

We cleaned up a bit and went and laid down with June in bed to talk about our New Year. She fell asleep within seconds. Dan carried her to bed and I wish I could say she slept through the night... but it was pretty restless for her. I guess thats what midnight does to you. She kept waking up crying and scared, looking for her blanket, even though it was right next to her. 

We all slept in until about 8. It was nice. 

Dan got tickets from work to go to the Cotton Bowl game at Cowboy stadium where Baylor was playing. So he had to wake up and get going. Game started at 11, but they had special box tickets, so they had to be on time. 

Us and the kiddos just played. I took down all our Christmas decorations and June helped me take down the tree. She was pretty cute about it. She hugged it and told it goodbye. 

Owen played and played and played

The house always feels so refreshing after taking down Christmas decorations. It's so clean and just a new start. 

Dan got home and we played Uno Moo and Mario Kart. June loves when we play and Dan is starting to teach her how to play. A skill everyone should have. 

The kids went to bed extra early tonight. June barley made it to bed before her eyes drifted off. 

And now here I am ready to start a new year. 

It was a wonderful Holiday. We were extra spoiled this year and enjoyed the comforts of home. I love this time of year, this incredible little family of mine, and how I owe it all to my Heavenly Father. He gave us the true gift. Christ is the gift and I cannot ever express how grateful I am and how indebted I am for the love he has shown me. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.