Getting in the holiday spirit!

 I really made an effort this year to not over plan leading up to Christmas.  Which is easy to do...over planning since we have Christmas activities, school events, and family birthdays.  But, I feel like we did a good job this year balancing it all without feeling too stressed or over planned.  We kicked off the holiday season with advent calendars and Christmas pajamas on December 1st.  The kids are definitely getting harder to pick an advent calendar for as they're getting older.

We immediately got started on watching our favorite Christmas movies.  Home Alone was the first watch since the boys were working on building the Lego Home Alone house.  

We did a gingerbread house building contest to celebrate Sydney and Pops' birthdays over at Jackie's house.  We had Lee's Chicken for dinner and ice cream cake for dessert.  It was fun!

Luna had a special visit with the big guy at Petsmart.  She wasn't a fan, but she was willing to sit kind of near him.  

Another fun activity I wanted to do this year was a clay class where you make a snowman.  I did the fall class making a pumpkin and it turned out so cute.  I asked my mom to come and we made a night out of it.  We grabbed dinner at China Cafe in Novi and grabbed some fun drinks next store before I went home.

One of our new favorite traditions we started last year is going to a church in Northville to see their light show that's synced up to music broadcasted on a radio station.  It runs every night, every 20 minutes on a loop and it's free!  We picked a random weeknight and had the kids go in their pajamas.  We even brought hot chocolate and some reindeer chow.  Everyone enjoyed it!

To celebrate my dad's birthday this year my parents bought tickets to the DSO "Home for the Holidays" concert.  We went a few years ago to this and it was really good.  We grabbed lunch at Compari's and then went on to the 3pm show.  The 3rd floor had a great Lego display and Santa and Mrs. Claus even made an appearance.  The second half was much more kid friendly.  

In between these fun events, we did a lot of baking (gingerbread cookies, snowball cookies, and sugar cookies with buttercream frosting), I dabbled in some watercolor painting, got my nails done, and just enjoyed some cozy moments at home.

Thanksgiving Break 2022

 

Happy Thanksgiving, from the Ferstles!

Man, was it glorious to finally reach Thanksgiving break and get our first real day off of the school year.  It's always such a long stretch to get through the fall.  

Our first day off we always decorate the house for Christmas.  This year, after putting up with many years of an artificial tree falling apart for one reason or another, we finally bought a new tree.  Unfortunately, Scott spent most of Wednesday morning putting up the old one and trying to put strings of lights on it before we decided we were done with the tree and took it back down and threw it out.  I was able to decorate the rest of the house and he went outside to tackle outdoor lights since it was mild out.  

Evan helped me bake the pumpkin pie as we opted for the responsibility of bringing pies this year.  The kids played outside and then it was time to get ready for our pictures.  We paid $30 to use the outdoor space at The Art Attic in Plymouth and took our own pictures.  Mindy and her family had the time slot right after us, but they came during ours so she could take some pictures for me and then I took pictures of them.  We all went out to Arbor Brewing after for dinner and beers.  Then it was home to make some buffalo chicken dip, some cocktails, and to start our annual tradition of watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Scott barely made it through the movie, but we had some good laughs.

I think we did alright for $30 and now the kids want to build a chicken coop in our yard and raise chickens...

Thanksgiving morning we made cinnamon rolls, bacon, and scrambled eggs for breakfast.  The kids played outside and I did Peloton's Turkey Burn 45 minute ride, which was amazing and I got a PR!  I baked the apple pie and we got ready to head over to my mom's house during halftime of the Lions game.  I have to say...it was a good game this year!  

My aunt and uncle from Plainwell came in to town and my other uncle arrived for dinner.  It was a nice afternoon/evening.  The pies came out well and dinner was delicious!

Friday I spent most of the day doing black Friday shopping online, making the boys' calendars on Shutterfly, and ordering our Christmas cards.  Evan was invited to go to the Eastern Michigan football game with his best friend and his family.  He came back around 4pm and his friend came over to spend the night.  The boys made their usual sleeping fort.  We did a nighttime excursion with flashlights to walk to the park that the boys thought was super spooky and fun.  Overall, it was a fun day for Evan.  And Sean was thankful the boys included him.

Saturday was Sean's big outing to Detroit to get lunch and to see Hamilton.  This was a birthday gift for Sean this year and he was pretty excited!  We made a reservation to have lunch at a place called Babo's that's known for their brunch.  It was so good!  We split an order of chicken and waffles and a cheeseburger and fries.  Then we had churros and chocolate for dessert.  We were stuffed!  Thankfully it was about a mile walk back to the Fisher Building, where we parked.  So, we walked off our food.  We checked out the inside of the Fisher Building, did some shopping inside the theater for Hamilton swag, and hung out for a bit before Hamilton started.

We both loved it!  It was well done!  It just made for a really long day.  The musical is quite long.  I think we were both ready to go by the time the second half wrapped up.  Thankfully we parked in the outdoor lot instead of the garage and got out extremely quick.  Our tree had arrived from Amazon so I spent the evening putting the tree up and fluffing the branches.

Sunday the boys decorated the tree in the morning.  Evan had baseball in the afternoon.  The rest of the day was spent preparing for the work and school week.

We had a good break and enjoyed the time off and home together!