Post-Christmas Fun

We've been having a lovely, relaxing week of fun with the family. Bean did a painting class with Rara and then they watched La La Land, which is one of Bean's favorite movies. 

Peanut has loved having time with Unkie. They played several games while everyone else watched the movie, and Peanut was pretty happy.

We FINALLY made it to Deacon Dave's. Don't know why we hadn't been before the end of the month, but we hadn't.

712,325 lights this year.

and a Ferris wheel because why not? Always impressive to see what they come up with.

We taught Rara and Unkie how to play Nerts. It's such a staple in our house that it seems wrong to not teach anyone who is around for more than an evening.

And more games. We don't play as many games in a normal week as we used to, but holidays are game time for sure.

And then, it was the end of the year. Rara and Unkie had to leave us in order to beat a snowstorm home, but Grandma and Grandpa came for New Year's Eve. We had so much food. I'm in love with charcuterie boards and just can't stop making them. Snacky foods for the win.

We had a crackling fire, some people watched a movie, games and shenanigans occured--it was a fun evening.

And I'll just leave it with this view of the creek near our house. All the rain the past couple weeks has led to a few days of crazy deep water. Would be fun if we actually have a flowing creek this winter.

 

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve and all through the house, there were projects aplenty.

These kids spent a chunk of the afternoon building gingerbread houses.

Peanut requested that they try a theme this year, so here is presenting the 3 Little Pigs:

A house of straw, and house of sticks, and a house of bricks.

They turned out so cute!

Peanut was so happy with it all.

he even made furniture in his house.

And the rendition of the house of sticks included a Big Bad Wolf.

He's already made it to this house, haha.

It was a good way to wait for Santa, and all the fun that came with that.

 

Santa's Elves

Lots of busy people this week! Bean has had to work 3 mornings, but is now off for the rest of the break. Peanut had his normal Tuesday activities--Art class and park day, but is now done for the rest of the break. And everyone has had Christmas fun to work on--secrets and gift making, last minute errands, decorating, baking--we've been We've been checking things off one by one.

Cookie baking is always a favorite. 

We had to spread it across 2 days because we ran out of time to actually decorate the cookies, 

Bean has stepped up the game.

Bug went for the knitted look.

And Peanut has continued the tradition of kiddos everywhere--tons of sprinkles.

But in the end, we had plates and plates of treats to share.

I think the only crafty thing I'll get to this year was drying oranges to use on packages, 

and to turn into a garland for our mantle.

This little guy wasn't satisfied with the list of Christmasy things we already had planned. After watching The Man Who Invented Christmas on Dec. 22, he decided he had to write a Christmas book (with a quill and ink) and gave himself a Dec. 24th, 10 p.m. deadline because if Charles Dickens can do it, why can't he? Haha. We'll see how it ends, but he churned out the first chapter in a couple hours.

Peanut also wanted to make ravioli--which probably could have waited until next week, but honestly, keeping him busy this week is good (the Christmas crazy is strong with this one, haha.)

Luckily, he has an awesome uncle who used to do this for his job. (Especially lucky because I got boosted the day before and was dragging a little by late afternoon and wasn't up for doing this.)

They made pumpkin ravioli and spinach cannellini. 

Yum! So good.

We love having family around.

On the Sunday Before Christmas

Sunday hike with my girl.

The fog was amazing. All the hiking around Livermore gets so much more beautiful after the rain starts. These hills are just gorgeous when they turn green.

Such a cool mushroom.

We wandered around the hills for a few miles, soaking in our soon-to-be winter weather. 

And then, we had our advent dinner. We're currently a week behind because last Sunday was too busy, so we still haven't lit the 4th candle, but figure we can do an extra one this week. Peanut shared the message with us this week--a story on service, and had us make scarves like in the book. Except we didn't have big enough pieces of fleece to make human scarves, so we made them for our animals--which probably isn't really a good service for them, considering they HATE them, haha. But it was fun, and a great idea.

A Miner's Christmas

Visiting Columbia State Historic Park at Christmas has been on my bucket list for several years. We were going to go a couple weeks ago, but had complications, so I didn't know if we'd be able to squeeze it in this year. And then, we lucked out with perfect weather and an open Saturday!

Columbia is full of history. We've done a couple field trips to learn about life in a 1850s gold rush town.

But visiting at Christmas added a whole different level of fun! We got to shop in the old emporium for gifts and ornaments.

Loved the sign they had up for masks. (Although most of the shops absolutely didn't care--every time we leave the Bay Area, it's a little surprising.)

We got to hang out with the miners around the campfire, drinking hot cider. They were roasting chestnuts, but ran out before we had chance to try them.

There was just the right amount chill in the air for it to feel wintry to go along with the Christmas vibes.

You can actually stay in a couple of the hotels here. I wish I'd looked into that before we went. Next time!

We had lunch at Kate's Teahouse.

It was chilly out in the garden, but the hot tea helped out a lot. 

We tried the African Red Solstice tea (and the people who like tea in our household enjoyed it, the ones who don't appreciated a warm cup to hold, haha.)

Lunch was delicious! I had a vegetarian pasty.

A couple of the kids got these amazing chicken pot pies. That was the top pick from the meal.

After lunch, we had more shopping to do,

some bandit role play,

with this frontier driver protecting the gold.

We climbed up the hill to visit the old schoolhouse.

It would have been fun see this town at its peak.

The drug store is always one of my favorites. It looks just like the one in It's a Wonderful Life.

So much fun wandering back in time for the holidays.

It was a lovely day--so fun to do something a little different.