Christmas events

Christmas Eve was spent with the Bores and Raineys and gobs of yummy, fattening party foods (since each family has their traditional favorites). We read Christmas stories to the kids, they opened PJs, we sang songs; great fun. (best picture I got of the girl's PJs was the next morning playing their harmonica and kazoo)

After we got home we were up till 2 am wrapping gifts and laying out the Fisher Price village we got them on Craigslist. We are night owls and definitely could have had all this done quite a bit earlier!! 4:43 am: Odessa is shouting next to our bed "Santa brought us a bunch of new toys!" Stephen apparently did not even register this event. Somehow I managed to get her back to bed quickly. I was EXTREMELY lucky that she was ok with it still being night and that she needed to sleep some more. 7:32 am Ada comes out of her room and I intercept her before she heads into the living room. We had to keep her busy for almost an hour while we waited for Odessa to wake up. Needless to say, we went to bed by 10pm that night and slept till 8:30 the next morning!!!
Opening presents took forever since the girls wanted to play with things as they opened them. We just took it slow. We even broke for breakfast in the middle. Yum. Sticky buns and cream cheese eggs and special bacon : ). Don't forget hot chocolate with a candy cane in it.
We took it easy the whole day, took a short walk and a drive to drop off treats to a friend, it was a beautiful sunny day.
Saturday we spent moving more stuff: Stephen's co-worker and his friend brought a truck and they loaded our car and their truck twice. I am really starting to think this move will be more smooth than Queen Anne to here. Stephen has been great and taking loads every day.
In the afternoon we needed to get out of the house and since the ham that I was too lazy to cook on Christmas (we had all those Eve leftovers) was going to take 3 1/2 hours to cook, we decided to just go down to the Seattle Center so the girls could ride the carousel and see the train and village. We ended up at Yummy Teriyaki (that's really the name) for dinner (long story involving a craving for sandwiches and closed Quiznos- grrr). The girls begged to use our chopsticks and amazing!- they actually did ok with them.









They had a TV in the restaurant with a football game on. Odessa really made the owner laugh when she started shouting during a play: "go! go! go! Oh no, he MISSED!" when the ball sailed out of a players reach.
To wrap up this much too long post: Today we finally cooked the ham and made the awesome Cooks Illustrated scalloped potatoes (thanks Beth!) and took them to our friend's on Capitol Hill for a much belated Christmas dinner. What a great way to finish the weekend. Although this weekend had many moments when we wished we were with extended family, our lonely times were filled by friends.