Christmas Recap!!

Oh  - how I missed my little blog!!! It was a great break but I really missed blogging!!! I took a break after vacation since I did not have to work to just enjoy life with no responsibilities!! HA!

I also wanted to make sure I spent my holiday break with my family, as much as possible, so I figured once the new year started I would catch you all up (and catch up on all of your blogs also!!)!

I hope everyone enjoyed their break as much as I did!!! My family is terrific and we made some serious memories this holiday season!

Here are some Christmas 2018 memories...

I spent lots of time with my nieces and nephews!!! I did the polar plunge into the lake with my nephews (boy bonding time) and I braided a lot of hair for my nieces (girl bonding). Since I am not showing you the polar plunge video (too much holiday food for a swimsuit picture - ha!) here is the braiding example - HA! This is called a waterfall braid and the tutorial can be found HERE. The girls LOVE this braid!

We spent a lot of time talking and laughing and playing board games together!!!

This is my sister-in-law and my nephew!

My little brother and my niece...

A niece and nephew...

All eight of the cousins (my nieces and nephews) together for a photo in front of Memaw and Poppy's Christmas tree!!!

And, of course, a goofy one!!!

Here is everyone sitting around chatting after Christmas dinner...the adults table that is!!!

The girls love to do face masks so we threw that into the mix!!! HA!

The emogi face masks are hilarious! I got them at TJ Maxx! The kids kept saying they looked Russian...not sure where that came from - HA!

We played a game where you have to hold a candy cane in your mouth and see how many others you can hook and move to a plate! That was a serious competition! I have VERY competitive nieces and nephews!!!

A local businessman in my parents area makes and sells beautiful metal flowers and bugs to decorate yards. His business is called Pottsy LLC! We love his art and for the holidays he hid a bud everyday for someone to find and keep! We took the kids in the car to follow the clues and look for one...they had a blast even though we did not find the bug (we found out later that we were no where close - ha!)

After the holidays, I returned home to my condo! I had been gone for over ten days and it was do nice to see that my babies definitely missed me! The cats followed me all over the house for days and this guy (Nermal) is still sleeping with me every night as close as he can get!!!! HA! What a sweet boy!

Lastly, but definitely not least, I can finally let the cat out of the bag!!!! When I was in Hawaii visiting my friend back in September; I learned she was newly pregnant. She asked me not to say anything since they wanted to wait until they were further along! On Christmas they posted this picture!!!! YEA Mariela and Alex and Duke! I am so happy for them - she has wanted this for so long! She is such an amazing person and I have NO DOUBT that she will be a terrific mom!!!!Congrats to them!!

Yippee Mariela!!!!! I am over the moon happy for them!

I hope each and every one of you had an amazing holiday break!! I cannot wait to go read about them all!!!

If anyone knows of a good blogging app for the iPad please share with me! I have tried two that I paid for and neither really works well at all!