Christmas!

We had such a lovely Christmas season this year. Lots of visiting with family and great food!

The kids with their new pajamas and books on Christmas Eve.

After we celebrated Christmas at home we headed to Evansville.

The hot tub is always a favorite.

Fantastic trip and we headed home ready to start the new year!

Christmas Mystery Dinner

For Christmas this year Josh's parents hosted a mystery dinner centered around classic Christmas characters. Dave was a take on Kevin McCallister from Home Alone, Ike was Ralphie, I was the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Josh was the Nutcracker. We had to figure out who killed Scrooge. We had an absolute blast!

They also made a delicious dinner with multiple courses but I didn't take any pictures! Such a fun night. (even though it snowed all day and just getting to their house was treacherous!) 

 

Visits and Band Concert

Gamma came to visit in December! We had been wanting to try another Christmas market (in Berne) so we went over with Josh's mom. It was fine but not nearly as awesome as the one in Carmel. We did find a really cute store in downtown Berne after so that was cool!

Unrelated to other happenings but I saw this on Facebook and I had to have it. It is the creepiest adorable decoration. 

That Sunday the kids had their Christmas band concert. They did such a great job!

 

Christmas Part III: Evansville

One last stop on our Christmas tour this year: Evansville! We went down for a little longer trip than usual so we could overlap with Rob's family being in town. Lots of fun and lots of present opening of course :)

Walking with Gamma-it's so weird both boys are just taller than a lot of us now!

We went putt-putting and laser tagging with Dad and Kyra. This was a blast. I have to point out that I won laser tag!

We went out to eat one night so mom took the boys out too!

Ike, mom, and Josh went shooting one day. 

I have been demoted to riding in the backseat now when Dave's driving us. So weird!

All the presents at Dad and Kyra's! It was great to see everybody and Dad made a feast! Crab legs and filet mignon.

 

Unfortunately our trip extended by an extra day because of Ike and I coming down with a stomach bug. We made it home the next day before Josh and Dave ended up with it. Not a great ending to our vacation but we had a lot of fun before that!!

Christmas Part II

We had a pretty quiet Christmas celebration at home this year. It was different but we enjoyed ourselves!

Started off by going to Josh's aunt and uncle's house for Christmas Eve. We played some games and ate good food as usual.

The kids (and us just not pictured) got to open their Christmas Eve presents.

Christmas morning-so many stocking presents. We have gotten less big items and more necessities wrapped up as stocking stuff over the years.

Josh's parents were on a tour of the state, visiting Em in Madison, Brit and fam in Indy, and then on to see us.

Josh made a bunch of steaks and they brought the Smith boys to us to hang for a couple days.

And Dave got a little driving in!

 

Christmas Part I

Kicking off this Christmas season we went down to Indianapolis for the Bowyer/Smith Christmas. The kids went down Friday and Josh and I joined in on Saturday.

On Friday they all went ice skating (to mixed results, ha!) and walked around downtown Indy.

We were all together by Saturday morning for some breakfast and Christmas cheer.

Josh's parents created a game show for all of us to play and even dressed the parts. It was awesome.

The kids paired off in teams to create a Christmas village scene. I think they did a great job and the winner took home cash while the runner up got the leftover gift cards from the game show!

I think this is the last year for the cousin crew shirts, little snug!

Thanks to the Smiths for hosting-we all had a great time!