Home Again!

We have had a wonderful Christmas "vacation!" Most of it was spent at home enjoying our time together as a family since Art had several days off for the Christmas holiday. Last Friday the children and I drove up to my parents house to see them since they were in North Carolina with my brother and his family for Christmas. The five days we were there went by very quickly as usual but we were very productive while we were visiting. I thought it would be fun to go to Joanne Fabrics and buy some material and patterns to make pajama bottoms for the children since everything was on sale. so for most of Sunday, Monday, and part of Tuesday we were very busy sewing. We made Minnie Mouse bottoms for Lily, Cars for Christian, Rudolph for Anthony, Camouflage for Alex (shirt and pants) and Green Bay Packers for Nick (shirt and pants.) Chelsea made her own pajama shirt and pants and they turned out great! Hopefully will be able to post some pictures but I didn't have my camera with me and can't get pictures off my phone to the computer.
We also celebrated Nick's birthday while we were there even though it is not until next week and took the children to Chuck-E-Cheese where they of course had a wonderful time. Christian used to be a very cheap child to take there because he was happy just sitting in the cars and he didn't spend any tokens. Now that he's 3 1/2 he has figured out how to play the games and it was really cute to watch him carrying around his cup of tokens and collecting his tickets. Lily of course copied her older siblings and knew just what to do with her money. Chelsea, Nick, Alex and Anthony had fun checking out the new games since they had expanded and moved to a new building since the last time we were there.
After driving 4 hours home and the children unloaded the van for me, I decided it was time to put the Christmas decorations away and try to get the house back to "normal." It only took a couple of hours with Chelsea's help and we got it all down before Art came home from work. We were all glad to be back at home with daddy again.
Today we had to go grocery shopping. It has been several weeks since we have all gone shopping and I had to do quite a bit of correcting and reminding in the store about behavior. It's amazing how being out of the routine for awhile can make the younger children forget how they are supposed to behave, but all in all it wasn't a bad shopping trip even though I spent more than I would have liked that's what happens when you don't shop for 3 weeks. After shopping my husband and children took me out to lunch at my favorite restaurant for my birthday today (even though they thought we should go back to Chuck-E-Cheese.)
Starting Monday we will get back on track and back into our school routine. We have several things planned and I have several reviews that will be posted (I think I had 14 from the last week in December until the last week in January.) I am looking forward to getting back to our school year!