A sweet day

Tuesday evening we were finally able to celebrate Christmas with the team.  We had decided to do a secret Santa and I think most people really had fun doing that.  We had a no money as a gift rule, but my person cheated on that.  But I was for sure ok with it.  See the picture.

The kids were really precious during that time though.  They knew they wouldn't really be getting presents and they seemed to actually enjoy helping others open their presents.  And they also were genuinely excited for what people were getting.  It was a fun and proud time for us that our kids could love the team well and be so animated and enthusiastic for someone else!

This picture is great for so many reasons.  The kids are
helping Tommy open his gifts.  But in the background,
you can also Tony holding a wooden sword while
wearing a t-shirt with a picture of himself.  Yup,
 some of the gifts were pretty amusing.

Thursday was a really fun and unique day.  I was gone in the morning for some much needed time with Julieta, the Venezuelan staff mom on our team.  When I came back, Bart was ready to leave for campus.  Leah, of course, asked if she could go to campus.

Long story short, she went to campus with Bart.  They had fun.  They took coloring things.  She got to wander around in classrooms and "teach" different people on the team.  She sat and ate lunch with people.  She had a really good time.  And she did really good.

Noah and I Skyped with my parents and there was no chaos or arguing.  Then we decide we would go get pizza.  He picked the place, of course, because he said we should get ice cream there while we waited for our pizza.  He knows what he's doing.

We took a couple of books and I read to him while we waited for the pizza.  We sat together and talked and enjoyed pizza.  Then we had to get ice cream.  Obviously.  Then we bought some milk (buffalo/cow milk, but go with it).  I promised him he could use the iPad for a little bit before Bart and Leah returned.  He decided he needed to watch a show on there, so that was a special treat.

It was a fun little morning/afternoon.  Our kids are really great.  But they fight like cats and dogs quite often.  When they're separate though, they are almost always really, really well behaved.  Overall, it was just fun for both of us to get to spend some one-on-one time with them.