There are always so many things to do during the Christmas season that it is easy to spend all of your time focusing on the to-do list and less time spending time with your loved ones (and spend even less thinking about the birth of our savior, Jesus). We spent quite a bit of time making yummy Christmas cookies and some chocolate covered peanut butter balls (some call them buckeyes but they are just too good for a Michigan kid who went to Purdue to give them such an awful name). We made the Christmas cookies for our church's small group Christmas celebration during the day and then had all of the kids in the group decorate them.Kai loved mixing up the cookies and he was actually pretty helpful!
Here are the kids decorating the cookies. They did a good job decorating. Kai did a good job eating the ones that he was given to decorate...
Here are some of the finished cookies. They were incredible!
The party with our small group was on December 13th. We spent the next week getting ready to head up to Northwest Ohio to do Christmas celebrations with our families. We first went to my parents place in Edon, where we took a stunning Hugh Lesnet family photo.
Grandpa Lesnet helped Kai put together a wooden red tractor. It took longer than we thought it would to put it together and I think that they were both glad when the assembly was over.
The next day we did Christmas with the Kit Eridon family. We had perfect attendance as Stephanie's sister Kimberly joined us via teleconference. There she is seated comfortably on the sofa!
Here is Kai helping pass out the presents. He did a good job but as you can imagine, he got a little distracted when he was to distribute a present to himself.
After opening gifts, we took Kai to the Small (Bowling Green, Ohio's Woodland Mall) to see Santa. It is free to see Santa at the Small, which was good because Kai did not like Santa and would only sit on daddy's lap next to Santa for a photo op. Thank you Santa, you were a great sport!
The next day, December 20th, we woke up and had some breakfast before heading down to Findlay, Ohio to have a Christmas celebration with Stephanie's mom's family. Kai loved sharing his breakfast with his grandpa Eridon!
Here is a group shot of the James and Jean Cornely family members in attendance.
On Christmas eve, the Indiana Lesnets got up early and got on a plane headed for sunny southern California to see my dad's sisters! We landed at Orange County Airport at around 9am California time and were picked up by Aunt Janet in her black convertible. We went and grabbed some casual Mexican at Rubio's which was delicious, then were off to Aunt Nora's townhome for a little rest. That evening, Aunt Janet took us to The Orange County Mining Company for an amazing Christmas eve steak dinner!
Christmas day, we got up and went to the park where Kai enjoyed the sunny skies and the temps in the mid 50's. The temps were about 10 degrees below normal the entire time we were out there but we were fine with that as they were about 30 degrees warmer than the weather here in central Indiana.
After a little time at the park, Aunt Nora took us down to Balboa Island. We changed Kai's diaper on this pier and then he touched the ocean off a pier for the first time.
An Indiana Lesnet family picture on Balboa Island.
That evening, we had a fantastic Christmas dinner with Jim and Patty who welcomed us in to their home with open arms. We hadn't met them before but we did have a connection as Jim's sister is married to one of my dad's cousins. Also joining us was Aunt Nora and my cousin Sean (who is Jim and Patty's nephew) and his family.
On December 26th, we went up to Pasadena to Aunt Janet's house. We had a great time up there as we went to see a Rose Bowl Parade float being built and went to the LA Zoo. That evening, Aunt Janet made us a great turkey dinner with all the fixin's. Yummm!!
After dinner, Aunt Janet read books to Kai by the fire.
On the 27th, we went to Huntington Beach and had lunch at Ruby's Diner at the end of the pier. The view was amazing and the retro vibe was pretty sweet too. Here are a couple of pictures of us hanging out on the pier.
After lunch on the pier, we took Kai down to the beach to do a little wading in the ocean. Kai is by no means a daredevil so we were a little concerned about how he would like it since the surf was very high that day.
Here are daddy and Kai heading to the water, would he like it?
Wading in for the first time, those are big waves out there and the water is chilly.
Hold on tight to daddy! Those waves are no joke!
He loved it and didn't want to leave! We got pretty wet though so we had to go.
We had a fantastic time in Southern California and our days were action packed. We had planned on staying for another day but Kai was having too much fun to sleep and mom and I were getting very tired so we took the redeye flight home last night and got in to Indy this morning at 6. We got home and Kai took a 3 hour nap (so did mom and dad), he's napping again and has been down for nearly 3 hours.
We are looking forward to our week off work this week (Kai's daycare is closed) and will definitely blog about our adventures.
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." - Luke 2:15
