Happy New Year! (part deux)

I'm a few days late on the Happy New Year, I guess. Ah, well.  Better late than never! (But as they would add at Girl Scout Camp circa 1988...better never late!)

We had a fantastic break full of ....not very much exciting.  We had school all the way up to December 23rd, so the break seemed to be extra long.  We spent Christmas Eve with the Coopers and Christmas Day with the Petersens/Kozliks.  And then the rest of break...we just hung out.  And rearranged furniture throughout the house, which seems to be our yearly tradition.

Here's the photo-dump of our Christmas break:

We kicked of Christmas week with the Wiley Christmas Party.  My brother Dave and his family were able to make it over from Lincoln, NE for the festivities and it was great to have everyone together!

The last day of school - which happened to be Dec. 23! - the girls found tickets for "The Twinkle Light Express" under their pillows.  Always a fun surprise (this is our third year of the tradition) - no one is quite sure where the tickets come from or how they appear under the pillows - but when the tickets arrive at bedtime we load up into the car (pajamas and all), take a snack usually Texas Trash (or Chex Mix for those not in my immediate family) and hot cocoa, and drive around to look at Christmas lights.

As I said, Christmas Eve was at my parents with Katie and Ryan.  A fun - but tiring! - day!

No Christmas would be complete if we didn't make our "candy cane" for breakfast on Christmas morning!

And off to the Kozlik farm for the afternoon!

New Year's Eve was spent with friends, and this year we had several minute-to-win-it games for the kids (we joined in, too).  They had an absolute blast!

It was a great, relaxing break - complete with relaxing, lots of reading, and good times.  And as usual, the week we came back to school was crazy: one snow day and three late arrivals!  All the girls got to help Dad shovel the snow and Willa got to try out her brand-new snow shovel!