Christmas 2017

This was, by far, the craziest Christmas we've ever had! We hosted Evan's whole family, as well as some of our extended Australian family. That's right - the 4 of us, plus both of Evan's brothers, their families, Evan's parents, and my sister-in-law Claire's parents, brother, and girlfriend from Australia! Quite the crew...and man did we have fun.

Evan's brothers, my sisters-in-law, and their kids all stayed in the house with us. Evan's parents were at a hotel, and Claire's family were actually in DC, as they spent a few days there doing the tourist thing. Everyone got to us by Christmas Eve, where we had a lovely dinner cooked by Claire's family as a thank you for hosting us all. We then prepped for Christmas Eve like always, getting ready for Santa!

Santa brought a pretty good haul this year, especially with 5 kids here!

My sister in law Amanda got matching jammies for all of the kids, so we took some Christmas Eve photos in front of the tree. 

 

And of course it isn't Christmas Eve without Evan reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

The kids had a blast opening all of their gifts on Christmas Eve, from so many people (including Santa). Henry was very excited to finish out his Harry Potter series (he's on book 4!), and Natalie and her cousin Charlotte both got American Girl dolls.

 

Here are the kids showing off their new fuzzy sleep socks that were in their stockings.

And Santa brought them each a nerf gun too.

Evan made me get in front of the camera for a couple of photos. Even with the giant bag of wrapping paper next to us, we're pretty cute I think.

Santa brought Natalie a combo case and bluetooth keyboard for her iPad, so of course that had to be tested out. You can also see the kids wearing their new watches that count their steps, and Henry with his new Tsum Tsum Storm Trooper.

Evan and I cooked Christmas night dinner - ham and shrimp (only shrimp for me!), with potatoes, vegetables, and bread. Very tasty!

Now a few family photos...

 

And we had fun with Facebook's Christmas photo filters.

Finally, with that many people there, we had to get a family photo. I set up my tripod and put the camera on a timer, then dashed in at the last second. Honestly, this was our first photo, and I think we did pretty darn well!

It was a crazy few days, and definitely more people than I am used to having around, but it was a ton of fun, and I'm so glad we were all able to be together.

2nd annual Punch, Pie, and Piano

Last year, one of Natalie's friends was unable to make her piano recital, so her mom talked to all of us whose kids play piano, and we decided to host our own recital! It was such a hit last year that we did another one this year. So, without further delay, the 2nd annual Punch, Pie, and Piano!

Ingredients needed: pies. Lots of pies. And punch.

 Kids who are ready to play the piano:

And parents to listen and videotape:


And of course, a Frozen sing-along:


We even got a little bit dressed up, since we had a second event to go to afterwards. Next post!

Christmas weekend 2016

Finally....Christmas 2016! I think this is my last post of 2016, and I made it in less than 3 months later. Phew boy, I need to be better about this blogging thing this year.

Anyway, back to our Christmas celebration! The first thing to do was decorate, which we did on the weekend after Thanksgiving, as is typical for us. The kids love getting out all of the decorations and helping us with the tree in particular.

 We have a small tree that goes in our TV room, and each year I give it a special theme. Last year we hung all of the ornaments from places we've traveled to; this year I decided to put all of the kids' homemade ornaments there. This was definitely the right call - they loved having them all in one place!

 I love all of my mantel decorations! And the personalized stockings that I splurged on from Pottery Barn last year. (Doubly good since we couldn't have spent money on something like that this year!)

 And here is a collage I made of everything lit up at night.

On Christmas Eve, after my family arrived, we all headed out to dinner at Magnolia's in Purcellville. Unfortunately, the dinner wasn't quite as good as we had hoped it would be (we should've chosen somewhere we'd been to before!), but being together for something like that is always fun. Don't we look nice in our red and green? :)

 After Christmas Eve dinner, it was time to head home and get ready for Santa! We put out the cookies for Santa, and treats for the reindeer (I can't get the photo turned, sorry about that!).

 After reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and getting the kids tucked away in bed, it was time for Santa to come!

 I think everyone made out quite well. The kids loved their gifts (some pics below). Carrie and I did our usual shopping trip prior to Christmas, and of course ended up getting some similar gifts for each other. I bought us matching Christmas leggings :)

 Some of Natalie's favorite gifts were the scientific equipment that she had asked for! She had the best time with this microscope. We even went out to the pond to collect some water and see if anything was swimming around - couldn't find anything then, but maybe when it gets warm!

As could be expected, Henry's favorite presents were his new Lego sets, and his new books!

It was so warm out on Christmas we were able to sit outside for a while! Kind of nice with the fire pit, and unexpected in December! 

 We always cook a big dinner on Christmas night - typically steak and seafood - and it was delicious! I love using my Christmas table settings, although this year we used more of our china and less of my Christmas dishes, but I love how the table looked!

 Christmas with family is always lots of fun - piling on the couch together!

 Overall a fantastic Christmas weekend. I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday as well!

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving this year was a first for Evan and I: we hosted! Evan has been wanting to for a while; I've been more than happy to let the mess and craziness happen at someone else's house. However, this year with everyone's schedules it actually worked out quite well for both sides of our family to travel to our house. We hosted my parents, Evan's parents, my sister, and Evan's brother and his wife. We were supposed to have two more, but unfortunately they weren't able to come last minute.

I had psyched myself out a bit about the number of people and amount of mess that would be in the house (I'm finding these large group scenarios a bit anxiety-inducing lately, which is a whole other post if I got into that!), but to be honest, the whole holiday ended up being very non-stressful, laid back, and a lot of fun.

First up was setting the table, which I did the day before. I had the kids help me create a center piece, and my mom brought her turkey plates (which were her grandmother's, I believe). We put the leaf in our table, and added a card table and chairs to the end to fit everyone. Not bad, I think! Oh, and I put some of the kids' artwork from school up around the room to add ambiance too :)

 Here's a shot from Evan's seat at the head of the table. Note my place cards!

 A close-up of the center piece. I had to get creative since apparently as of about mid-November you can't find fall-themed decorations at any store; it's all moved over to Christmas. Sigh.

 Evan was very excited that he got to make (and carve) the Thanksgiving turkey. Meanwhile, I took this selfie with Carrie and the kids!

 

After dinner, we took a nice sunset walk around the pond, as everyone needed to move around, and it was pretty warm outside!

 Look how cute my kids are, all dressed up.

 

Family selfie!!

 When we got back to the house, my parents were relaxing on the back stairs. I made my mom take a photo with me, as I don't get to do that very often.

Overall, a wonderful thanksgiving with our families. So glad that both sides could celebrate together!

Gingerbread contest at NIH

I had hoped to get a "better" post up tonight than this one, but I'm experiencing some computer issues currently (it seems that my computer has decided to no longer recognize my power cable, which means the battery won't charge, and everything is running extraordinarily slow. To the Amazons!). Anyway, I did want to post something, as it's been 5 days (oops!), so I thought I'd throw up this kind of random post as it'll be quick and easy.

In December I needed to go to NIH for a day to meet a couple of clients. When I was walking through the clinical building (Building 10), I saw the entrants for the yearly Gingerbread contest that apparently they run every year (I worked there for 4 years and didn't know about this!).



There was of course a Star Wars entry!

 I enjoyed this submission from the NIH library staff (left), and a group who did an interpretation from the LEGO movie (right)!

 

 There were winners for this contest too. Third place went to this beautifully constructed house.

Second place went to one of about three Frozen-inspired castles; this one was by far the best.

And first place went to this beautiful Dr. Seuss-inspired creation!

Really cool to see! One of the things I love about my job is stumbling across random things like this in my travels :)