Time to catch up a little bit… What else is new, right? Anyway, 2011 is officially over, and while it was a brought the Johnsons many blessings—we are looking forward to what 2012 will bring also! Back track a couple weeks, shall we? In our family, we celebrate Christmas the right way. Lots of places to go, people to see, food to eat, wine to drink, and gifts to give :)However, it is also an exhausting time for us, in a good way, but still… I’ll show you what I mean. The Friday before Christmas (23rd), Jen and I took the boys (and Piper- gosh, I need to stop saying ‘the boys’ all the time!) to New London and spent the day with Amy, Brynn, Gus, Reed, and Zane… We ventured down to the lake right by their house and the kids had a blast ice skating! Ryder hasn’t really been on skates except for a few times and this year he really got into it. He took his little chair and cruised around without a care in the world. Then, he discovered that it’s SUPER fun to fall on the ice (when you have tons of padding from snowpants, etc) and that became his new game for the afternoon. All in all, it was a great day and we headed home one tired crew—all four kids took a nap and Jen and I were reminded how sweet our kids are….(when they are sleeping!) The following day was Christmas Eve. I made my first ever spinach and mushroom feta cheese quiche and we headed over to my parents’ house for brunch to hang out with my immediate family… I used to think I had such a small little family, but we are growing, slowly but surely. It now consists of my parents, my sister and her husband, Nate, my brother and his long-time girlfriend, Erin, Max and I, Ryder and Piper… Doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you add in Goose (my parent’s German shorthair), TeeJay (my sister’s rat—I have no idea what kind of dog it is—the kind in lady and the tramp I think) Mickey (our lazy golden retriever), and Tuff (my brother’s adorable, yet VERY high energy lab puppy). Yeah, we are dog people, and it gets a little crazy. (And in case you were wondering, the quiche was delicious…I will definitely be making that again! YUM) After brunch we headed home for Christmas Eve church service and then just got to go home and hang out together. Ryder was so excited for Santa, he went to bed like a champ! The next morning, we were lucky enough to have both kids sleep in for a change, and then we opened Santa’s presents… Ryder was thrilled with his new things and is still finding new things to play with to this day… Later that day we headed to Grandma Betty’s, celebrated with the whole Johnson crew and that evening went to my parents for the Hendrickson get together. Are you exhausted yet? Because I was by this time... But yet Monday came and we had yet another Christmas brunch at Mark and Cindys with Max’s immediate family… More good food, more good people, more calories consumed, yada yada… It goes without saying that when we left, my little family took a 2 hour nap!!
After that week we dealt with a lot of puke and a lot of laundry, because Ryder got some type of flu-bug. Not fun, not cool. But we rolled with it and eventually it cleared up and he headed up for his annual trip to Breezy Point with the Barricks… Since we were down one kiddo, we decided somewhat last minute to meet up with some friends for New Years Eve since our other plans fell through… Little P went to visit Grammie Cindy and Papa Mark and Max and I headed over to Emily and Andy’s for a couple hours. So glad we did—nothing like ringing in the new years with good friends! :) We picked up P on the way home that night and enjoyed our next couple days off… RELAXING and working on the kids’ playroom downstairs. It is coming together, and I love it so far! Now my little man is back home with us, thankfully… 5 minutes after walking in the door, he had turned my entire living room into a ‘fort’ with draped blankets and pillows everywhere…. So much for my clean house!!
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