Christmas recap 2014

Christmas this year was FUN. Christmas with kids is awesome, but Christmas with kids who actually GET that it's Christmas? That is amazing. Here's a little photo rundown of the Christmas week.

Christmas Eve- oh the anticipation!

They were too wired to take naps and I was too tired to say no. So yes. Yes to skipping naps. Yes to a show. Yes to popcorn.

Of course, that meant car naps while delivering goodies to the gate guards.

Sam was snoring SO LOUDLY.

We woke them up and drug them upstairs to do Christmas Eve-y things like write Santa a note and set out cookies. Some people were more excited than others.

"Dear Santa, Merry Christmas! Hi! I want to give you cookies and milk and carrots for your reindeer. Goodbye, friend! xo, Sam + Molly"

"Take my pitchur, Muwm!"

Santa (moi) got busy getting things ready for the morning.

Star had to be plugged into a transformer. Tres chic, no?

Sometime after the kids saw the carrots the next morning, someone (?) came and cleaned them up. Whoops.

Sam's face when he saw the carrots outside the door- how priceless. I remember my parents scattering carrots in our yard and thought that it was so realistic! Not sure how realistic our carrot hunks were, but they bought it anyway.

Steve and I rounded out the night with some wine and Christmas Vacation. Perfection.

The next morning, I was the first one up (of all the mornings for them to sleep in!) and after everyone was awake and I started the coffee maker, Sam (slowly) busted through the red tape (literally) and discovered the gift he'd been talking about for ages- his monster truck. I then proceeded to get hardly any pictures of him because he was busy running it into every piece of furniture in our house.

Quite a few more strips were added the next morning for a more dramatic effect.

"Kimchi!"

Facetiming family- she insists on holding the laptop and mean-mugging everyone

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus

Steve took the kids outside to play with Sam's monster truck while I prepped food for our Favorite Things Dinner that evening.

Pizza dough and birthday cake

Horribly lit dinner picture. CHEESE! We are stuffed! And tipsy! And happy! And in our pj's because we are pretty close and don't need to dress up for each other anymore. ;)

Steve had staff duty the day after Christmas (womp womp), so the kids and I just hung out at home. Sam took a lot of pictures and kept telling me how good I was cheesin'.

Saturday, we went to a big kids cafe with our friends. So much energy burnt- lotsa naps. Yesssss.....

The rest of Saturday was spent cleaning the house, mopping floors, jumping on couch cushions, and catching up on laundry so that we could spend our Sunday in Seoul. We ended up going to the Children's Museum and it was so fun!

These little machines sucked the balls up, shot them into that bin overhead, and once it was filled, dumped them all out again. Great fun.

I think Molly could have played with this oversized Lite Brite all day.

Likewise with Sam and this wall.

We moved on to the "music" room where you bang plastic pipes onto everything in sight.

"Seaweed"

Maybe Molly can help us install a new tile backsplash in our future kitchen. She was quick to correct Steve on how wrongly he placed tiles.

There was so much I did not get photos of- the crane, bricks, construction site, international cooking station, television studio, etc, etc.

I love that Korea instructs you to wash the clothes and then practice hanging them on a drying rack. No one uses dryers!

Don't tell her to walk down a runway. That cramps her artistic vision apparently. She's gonna charge down it at full speed and then dance at the end.

Someone was ready to leave by this point....

We spent the afternoon on post in America Seoul and Sam volunteered to get a haircut! Molly was drug out of the PX kicking and screaming and napped in the car while Sam got a haircut. They were so accomodating to the fact that he NEEDED to watch a monster truck video in order to sit still.

The assistant would try to raise Sam's head when he needed him to look up, but after a while, would just raise the phone and his head would follow. They are OMGSOPATIENT. I am happy to pay someone else $8 to deal with this high-needs-haircut child.

Today we had a playdate and did more laundry/dishes/cleaning. Steve is on half-day schedule but just got home a bit after 4, so who knows what tonight holds. It better hold something fun because the kids are still napping, so Baby Jesus himself only knows how late we'll be up tonight entertaining Those With Endless Energy. Hold me. And Merry Christmas!