The month began with Bob's first day of his "trip around the world" (Tokyo and London for work). We ladies celebrated the family Christmas Tree Cake Day after school and ballet were over.
Friday, Anna had futsal in the evening. Saturday was a busy day: Erin had her holiday meet-up with fellow piano students, then Anna and I watched Sarah in the fun and festive Holiday Cabaret put on by the dance school. It was super cute! Between that, we did a telehealth visit for Anna's red eye and got some antibiotic eye drops for that. After the dance show, 4 of Anna's closest friends came over for a Christmas-themed sleepover. It was a lot of fun and was a wild time!
Sunday, we recovered and then enjoyed attending Liz and David's Christmas Soiree, back after a 2-year hiatus. What a weekend!
The next week was super busy around here with lots of holiday events at school, including the annual Christmas shopping extravaganza for the kids that I help with and a cookie swap for the teachers (with cookies baked by parents). I hosted book club on Monday, we had the regular activities, and Anna had a fun sleepover with ice skating outing for Gracie's birthday on Friday.
Bob returned home from his successful world tour on Saturday evening, and we enjoyed the return of the neighborhood holiday social event and hayride on Sunday!
The following week was a little more calm (Finley celebrated his 4th birthday on Monday the 12th!)
through 3pm Thursday, when we headed out on our fun trip to New York City! The trip recap can be found HERE.
We got back Sunday and jumped into holiday crunch time, plus Anna going ice skating with Lyla on Monday (3 boys from school were there, but thankfully it wasn't too awkward), Erin's 14-year-old checkup and cookie baking on Tuesday, Erin and I enjoying the Carolina Ballet Nutcracker on Wednesday (it was wonderful!), and some family mini golf fun on Thursday.
Anna caught an early ride to Concord on Friday to stay over at Grandma and Grandpa's with Logan, Ansley, and Ben. The rest of us made some food and met them there Saturday morning for a super fun Christmas Eve celebration! The California cousins joined us via FaceTime for presents, then we had a yummy lasagna lunch and played some Farkle since it was too cold to go outside. We headed back around 3pm and got a call on the way back that some Tierneys were sick and couldn't have their Elf Party, so we decided to go to 7pm Christmas Eve mass instead. It was very nice and not too crowded, and we really enjoyed not having to go on Christmas morning!
Santa did visit our house, and we had a great time opening presents on Christmas morning. Highlights were matching NCSU hoodies for Anna and Bob, Air Pods for Anna, a new desk chair and comforter for Erin's bed, and some great kitchen gear for me. Finley also got some snacks and toys! We had a great day just relaxing and enjoying time together. We had ham and homemade mac and cheese for dinner. It was a very Merry Christmas!
The next day, I was up at 5:30am to hit the sales for next year's Santa's Secret Workshop! Erin joined me around 8am and we cleaned out 5 Walmart stores and 1 Michaels store with 2 trips home to unload. The stores weren't as well-stocked as they had been in the past, but I've been more successful with finding stuff online lately, so hopefully it will work out in the end. Our college friends Yannis and Sofia were in town from California and brought their kids over for dinner. We had a wonderful time seeing them and catching up! Their kids are so well-behaved, and the girls enjoyed a marathon Scrabble game with them. Tuesday was more shopping, combined with Erin going to Olivia's belated birthday party and the rest of us introducing Anna to the Melting Pot! Erin had a blast at Olivia's house, walking in the woods and painting, and then the 5 girls and Olivia's very brave mom went to dinner at Goji Bistro (Chinese)!
Wednesday and Thursday, Grandma and Ansley came up to visit! We had a really nice time and put them right to work with sorting, packing, and driving 3 car loads of our shopping haul up to school and unloading it. We also had a yummy meatloaf dinner and pancake breakfast, walked Finley, and played a few rounds of Boggle. After they headed back, we then had a great visit with Tom, Pam, Jimmy, and Danny! The kids played outside, played the Switch, and played a game of Life while the adults attempted a game of Wingspan. Thanks to Pam, she was a pro at the game and taught Bob and me how to play!
Friday was a little calmer with the main event being Anna, I, and 2 of her friends trying the ice skating rink at the Red Hat Amphitheater. It was a beautiful day, but maybe a little too beautiful because the sun and 74 degrees melted the ice! It was super slippery! Luckily, there were also some food trucks and games set up, so they could take breaks from the danger. They had a great time.
Our Wolfpack did not have a great time at their bowl game that day, however. Today, was sadly the day of taking down all of our Christmas decorations. They served us well! We also did the family cooking "week" (one night rescheduled due to other events). I made chicken marsala on the 20th, Anna made BBQ beef sandwiches on the 21st, Erin made Asian chicken or beef rice bowls on the 22nd, and Bob made belated chicken Pad Thai on the 31st. They were all delicious!!
We are spending New Year's Eve at home watching some football and playing games.
So, it was a really fun and BUSY month! We are thankful for every minute of this normalcy!
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