Holiday Post

I certainly had planned on putting up a blog before this about all of our holiday activities...but now it is New Year's Day and they are all coming to a wrap up. The entire Christmas Season has been wonderful at our little house. Somehow it worked out that there wasn't much stress, but a lot of time just spent being a family and having fun. I have gotten asked a lot of if the girls understood their first Christmas. Uh, yeah. You can sleep well at night knowing that Hamda and Shkuri had no problem adjusting to an American Chrstmas. We had three different family parties and then spent Christmas day walking between our house and Mike and Ruth's (My in-laws). I was pretty proud of the presents we got the kids - just about everything was either used or bought locally - and they have played with it all. We have spent a lot of Christmas break just playing board games or their Nintendo Game Cube. Here are the kids playing a vintage game of twister on Christmas Eve.

Here is Elias in his Superman costume present on Christmas day:

Here are the kids putting together their jig saw puzzles that Ariel made them from pictures of themselves. They are very, very cool and I am extremely impressed by his toy making talents.

I have so many wonderful memories from this Christmas time. It was so great to just hang out with the kids at home without anything hanging over our heads. If you ever have lost any Christmas magic - just spend a few hours with some five and six year olds. Ariel didn't work much at all for the last two weeks, I only had to work my usual part time (and no school work!) and the kids didn't need to go anywhere. We slept in almost every mornin. We spent many great hours with friends and family. I beat Ariel at Carcassone after about twenty tries. I made Creme Brulee for eighteen people - and nothing went wrong. Much to Ariel's disgust, I spent a lot of time obsessively watching BBC's Robin Hood with the kids. Among my favorite presents was the Volkonsky translation of War and Peace (I have been waiting seven years for it to be published), Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books, Decemberist Tickets, and this T-shirt from Aimee:

Last night we played some games and watched Moulin Rouge. Today we are off to spend the day with my Aunt Pat and family in Seattle...I have my list of resolutions all ready for 2008, but I won't divulge them to a soul. Ariel says his only resolution is never to watch another episode of Robin Hood again. Happy New Year!!