I'll start off by flashing back to Thursday. I mentioned that we ordered a Nugget fort-building couch for our kids for Christmas. It arrived early with the instructions to open it immediately! It's compressed for shipping but needs to be opened within days of arrival.
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| It came in a smaller box than we anticipated and looked like this all wrapped up. |
We don't have any storage space in our house that the kids don't have access to, so we decided to give them an early Christmas present. It's not ideal but oh well. They love it so far!
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| Serious static electricity was experienced! |
Hopefully the nugget will help on weekends when we are cooped up due to the cold!
On Friday, Paul and I went to the light show at the Arboretum. The forecast looked good, but the weather suddenly changed right as we were leaving - it started to snow and the wind really picked up.
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| Paul's expression sums up how we felt for much of the walk. It was really cold and blustery! |
But since we are hearty Minnesotans, we made the most of it. Paul enjoyed it but when I asked if he wanted to do this again next year he said he'd like to come back in the summer. Ha.
Saturday was Will's 2nd birthday! My parents came over in the morning as they were in town for my nephew's football championship game on Friday night (they won! I would have gone if we didn't have tickets to the light show). Paul helped me make Will's cookie cake that morning. Then the boys had gymnastics and I dropped Paul off at a friend's birthday party. I know the family well enough to just drop him off. I had a lot to do at home to prep for the party so couldn't stay. He had a great time!
I spent the afternoon prepping for the party. I assembled the enchiladas so I'd just have to pop them into the oven and set our table.
We had chips, salsa, and guac to start. Then chicken enchiladas and Spanish rice for dinner. For dessert, we had a cookie cake since Will loves cookies.
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| The Great British Bake-Off is not going to come calling anytime soon. Ha. But it tasted good which is all that matters. |
Sunday was more low key. Thank goodness! I went for a run with my neighbor in the morning and then we hung around the house all morning. I thought Will might have been ready to play our favorite kids game, My First Orchard. It was very evident he's not quite ready. Maybe in 6 months he'll be ready to play it. The box says 2+. Phil thought it was funny that I took that literally; like something magical might happen when he turned 2 that would make him ready for this game. But you don't know until you try!
And that was a wrap on our full, festive weekend! It's another busy week for us... I travel to Chicago tomorrow-Thursday for work, have book club on Friday where we pick our reads for 2023, and then we head to my parents' lake home with the boys on Saturday where they'll stay while we are in Mexico. We fly to Mexico a week from today! Yippee! I'll be back tomorrow with a post about the perspective I've taken to manage holiday stress!
How was your weekend?
13 comments:
Yay for a vacation somewhere warm! What a wonderful thing to be looking forward to.
We should take more advantage of the Christmas in July thing and do activities like light displays in the summer. I think Paul's on to a genius idea!
Well, my weekend was a lot less eventful than yours- but I did get our outdoor lights put up so I feel very triumphant about that. Sounds like everything went really well- other than the fact that you had to give the boys their Christmas present early. It looks amazing, but what will you do on Christmas? Are there enough other presents (from family) so that they won't notice? I agree- something like that would be very, very hard to store and keep hidden.
I like the cookie cake! Yes, my birthday cake decorating skills are about on the same level. It's perfect for kids, and I'm sure it was delicious.
Good luck with the Chicago trip!
They get sooo many gifts from extended family so they won’t notice! They will still get some stocking stuffer gifts from Santa. So it should work out ok.
I just love reading about your weekends! You pack so much fun into such a short amount of time! And look at that adorable big birthday boy! He looks so happy with his chips!
Hahaha - Paul's comment about coming back in summer. Very practical, buddy!
What a full, fun, fabulous weekend. Love the light show and the party looks wonderful. I'm so glad so many were around to celebrate. So festive and fun! It's hard to believe Will is two already!
That couch/fort looks -- well, huge -- but fun!
so excited about the upcoming vacation! hope you get some rest there! where in Mexico? I love cancun, so lay back.
I LOVE the idea of a nugget couch. I've seen them pop up a few times on gift guides and it just seems so brilliant. What great, fun, comfortable entertainment with oodles of scope for the imagination.
I love Paul's idea to go back to the light display...in the summer.
We STILL haven't had any snow yet and I am so, so happy about that!
Our weekend was crazy; my husband arrived home from an overseas trip, my son got sick, and I had three evenings in a row of a volunteer gig. So I'm tired!
That birthday party looks so perfect! What a nice time. It looks like just the right amount of "fuss and muss"- simple but still very nicely done. Happy birthday to Will! Only 1 day apart from Asher. :) And 11 years. ;)
Too bad it had to be so cold and blustery for the light show. I have multiple memories of times like that when the boys were little and something was "supposed to be fun!!!" But then, it kinda really wasn't. LOL! Maybe next year you'll get a mild, 40 degree, calm evening and you can try it again. :) The lights look beautiful though! And that last selfie of you guys is adorable.
The couch thing looks like so much fun! What a great idea. I don't think those existed when my kids were little? Or I didn't know about them... For a while we had one of those cardboard pop up houses in the basement, that you can color on- have you seen them? Basically a big coloring book, but on cardboard, and then it's a house/ fort. That was a hit for a while.
That fort building thing! How much fun is that! Honestly, the kids will get so much stuff on Christmas that having this early to play with is great (or at least, I think so! Anyway, what can you do.)
That cookie cake looks delicious!
Looks like a fun weekend! Have so much fun in Mexico.
I love Pablo's idea about Christmas lights in the summer; little kids have the best answers to questions like that, aka honest ones! My parents make us all walk around every Christmas eve after dinner and before dessert to look at lights and it's definitely not as cold as MN but often is 19 or 20 degrees, so it's cold enough for me! I guess some things never change...
Have fun in Mexico; I hope you get to spend lots of time reading and relaxing and soaking up the sun!
I am so excited for you to escape freezing Minnesota and spend some time in Mexico with Phil! What a great idea you had to do this trip in the middle of December. :)
That fort building couch looks AMAZING. Hopefully it will get a lot of use this winter.
Happy birthday, Will :)
So happy you had such a nice family get together for his birthday!
Have so much fun in Mexico!
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