Christmas Update...Finally!

Yesterday we started our day by driving home from Caleb and Andrea’s house at 7:00 a.m. It started sleeting around 3:00 a.m. and we realized we better get home before the weather got any worse. We spent the night there the night before and had a “Bachelor Party”, which was really a Bachelor watching party. We had a fire and the heating lamps out because our heater was out all day. Perfect timing! A service guy came out around 8:30 last night and told us that we needed to run everything off of our emergency heat until the temperatures picked up. So it got up to about 65 degrees in our house (an improvement from 55 degrees) last night. However, around 4 a.m. the city decided it would start randomly turning out electricity on and off in homes to conserve energy. Each time it goes out our temperature drops back into the 50s. At least we have it here and there though! So, I’m finally getting around to writing about our Christmas, Reese’s first Christmas!

We usually have several Christmas celebrations and we have so much fun at each one. The first Christmas celebration we had this year was with our Ukrainian group. We had it here at our house and we ended up having probably around 50-60 people. It was so nice getting to spend time with friends and getting to meet others we had not had the chance to yet.

A few weeks after this Christmas we had our Martin Christmas celebration. This was Reese’s first Christmas celebration with family and with gifts. It didn’t take long to figure out we could’ve wrapped up a box filled with tissue and bows and she would’ve been thrilled. I’m pretty sure that was her favorite part.

Martin Family-minus Adam & Matt

Mandy & Corbin

A few nights later we had our celebration at Don and Sara’s beautifully remodeled home. We had such a nice time with family and enjoyed some great food.

Reese with her Pappy

On Christmas Eve morning we went to Gary and Anita’s and celebrated with them, Brad, Melissa, and the girls. We made a variety of breakfast/brunch foods, ate together, and shared gifts. It was so nice and relaxing and we had a wonderful time with everyone.

Cousins!

Reese with her Paca!

That night we went to Sandy’s and had our Ukrainian Christmas complete with perogies, borscht, holubchi with ushka, and this year we had red fish. Food was great as usual, but time just hanging out with the fam was so special!

The next morning the three of us got up early and headed to the ranch (five hour drive). Our goal was to make it there for lunch which we did. Everyone was there and we were able to have Christmas lunch/dinner with them. We exchanged gifts with part of my family at lunch. That night we exchanged gifts with everyone else. We stayed there the rest of the week and just relaxed. We love it there so much!

Opa made Reese a toy box! We LOVE it! So does she!

The toy box without the lid. Opa also added hardware.

Ready to go out!

Out to eat!

Doyle and Uncle Werner

Crashed!

Not the best angle in the world, but love the snugginess of this pic!

Reese has a lot of hair

Testing out her duckie tub!

Snuggy time! Watching TV!

Reading her book with Mikey Pop

Reese is reaching out to grab her first gift. She loved the bow.

This was Reese's first gift on Christmas day from us. Traditional Christmas PJs!

Oma and Opa's quilt I made--Reese helped!

Reese and I got Adam a digital picture frame with an iPod dock for work

Quilt I made for my Mom-yes, Reese helped with this one too

For New Years Eve we went to a toga party at the home of one of the families in the Ukrainian group we are a part of. We had such a great time. We stayed until 2 a.m. and spent most of our time dancing, which I loved! I feel blessed to be part of such a special group.

Dancing
Amanda, Jerri, Me, and Melissa
Brad and his wig

Family
Melissa, Me, and Nicki

In our togas

In January we celebrated Malanka, which is the Ukrainian New Year. We performed, changed into our formal gear, ate dinner, and then danced with everyone else. We had SO much fun!

Awkward, but funny picture

Fufi & Adam