Christmas Break

One of the nice things about having a husband who is a teacher is the time off he gets for holidays and summer. We've really been enjoying ourselves these past couple of weeks and it has been really nice to have him home during the tough newborn stage. He is such a great hubby and daddy and has really stepped up in taking over Michaela's care so that I can tend to the baby's needs. Other than adjusting to being a family of four and spending time with extended family, some of the highlights have been taking the kids to the local kids science museum, Rafael getting to play Jesus at the Christmas Eve Mass, and Michaela getting into a jar of Nutella! Here are some pics from his time at home:

A few pictures from Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Christmas Eve lunch at my Grandma's house. We hadn't seen alot of the extended family in a while, so it was really nice.

Michaela with her great grandma.

And with her grandma & grandpa.

My sister, nephew and me.

Some family shots.

We went to the Children's Mass that afternoon, and then to a friends house for dinner. I didn't get any pictures, but check out this awesome house that we saw on the way to their house!

Christmas morning, Michaela slept in kind of late. We didn't get around to opening presents until around 10:30 am.

She was more interested in the paper. A monkey for the monkey!

She made out like a bandit!

We went to my dad's house in the afternoon on Christmas day. We ate posole & tamales, played lots of games, watched some movies and had a great time. We had so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures! Here is the only one I got:

I hope you all had as enjoyable Christmas as I did!

Family Moment Monday - Christmas Traditions

I am participating in a special edition of Family Moment Monday. Visit Motherhood for Dummies to read about other Christmas traditions, or to post your own.

There are a lot of Christmas traditions in my family, but one of my favorite was the placing of baby Jesus. We used to set up our Nativity Scene every year underneath the Christmas tree, but we would not put baby Jesus in the manger. On Christmas Eve every year, after we had returned from midnight Mass, one of us children would be able to put baby Jesus in the manger. I always would look forward to when it was my year to do it!

Speaking of midnight Mass, that was also a great tradition in my family. We would go to midnight Mass, and somehow Santa would have visited our house while we were gone. I still don't know how my parents did it, because I don't remember them ever taking separate cars!

My dads side of the family has never been huge gift givers. For the adults, we do a Secret Santa, which we call a Cherry Pie (because originally we put all the names in a little plastic cherry pie). The adults just get a gift for the one person they pick, usually under $20. As children we always had presents, but we usually didn't get tons of the hottest and newest toys. My grandma would get us things like socks and towels. To be honest, we loved them! In fact when I was 11 or 12, my grandma got me these two pairs of flannel pajamas that I have worn every single winter until this year, when I decided to let them go. Of course, I ran out to Walmart and got an identical pair because I loved them so much!

How about you, what are your Christmas traditions?

Winter Wonderland

Here are a few pictures from our weekend. We went to the Christmas Tree lighting in Old Town on Friday night with my sister and brother in law:

And here is our first snow of the season which I woke up to yesterday morning. Yeah!!!!