The End of a Decade

Winding down the year - walking around the plaza on a gorgeous night, getting ice cream to remind us it's winter. Kate was rocking her new Christmas high tops . . . all lit up in the Christmas Spirit.

NYE Party with friends! 

The girls favorite part of the night - watching the adults do Karaoke! 

Bring on 2020! Cheers my friends!

HOME. Cozy in our jammies by 10:30 to ring in the New Year at our place!

On the 5th Day of Christmas . . .

On the 5th Day of Christmas, some of us Moms left the kids with the Dads and went out to celebrate! The plaza was all lit up and my favorite Holiday pop up bar was still in the Christmas spirit!  

Kirsten and Me . . .

Love their Christmas cocktail menu . . .

Megan and I hearing ALL of Santa's secrets . . .

McPherson for Christmas!

We hopped in the car the morning after Christmas to road trip to Mac Town to meet my siblings at my parents house for aa Reichenberger Christmas celebration!

Cousins reunited!

Sarah introduced us to a fun game with timing ourselves unwrapping Hershey kisses with oven mitts on! It was hilarious!!!

I am proud to say I hold the record with 7 seconds, thank you!

2nd try . . .

So so funny to watch . . .

Sister Cousins. It's a thing.

Gift exchange!

I met some high school friends at the local coffee shop one afternoon  . . .

Sonja Harris  - one of my only Catholic friends growing up in my small town. We went to CCD together since we were little and then CYO sports, lock ins and retreats together in High School. SO many wonderful memories with her!! Hadn't seen her since graduation!!!

Sara Stieben - we were in show choir together (Mixed Ensemble) and ran track and cross country all through middle school and high school together. So many memories from track meets and running out in the country with this sweet girl. Hadn't seen her since our 10 year reunion - so wonderful catching up!! She lives in Wisconsin now, married one of our other HS classmates.

Lots of card games were played - and we played POKER again like the old days!! LOVED IT!!

Sarah, the game master, introduced us to new fun games like this one!!!

Grandma JoJo (Mom) and her Granddaughters . . .

These 3 put on a show for us that was really good . . .

Kate liked tackling and throwing "snowballs" at Uncle Brian - who is always such a good sport. 

Mass together on "Feast of the Holy Family" - so special. 

Kate is rocking her new "showy" gold high tops, of course.

My parents tree was gorgeous in their living room . . .

Christmas Morning . . .

I didn't take many pictures on Christmas - but here are the few I snapped. We enjoyed the day - just the 4 of us, exchanging gifts, eating lots of good food and playing with our new toys/games. We surprised Mike with a new Schwinn bicycle and he and the girls went on a bike ride to test it out in the afternoon - it was in the 60's on Christmas Day here in KC!!

Kate loved her new fuzzy chair from Santa!

Molly loved her new AG Doll and shoes from Santa! She also got some new Taylor Swift piano music from Mike and me . . .

Kate also got these gold high tops from Santa that LIGHT UP! Mike turned out the lights and turned up the music for a glow in the dark dance party.

Both girls were so creative with their gifts - truly from the heart. This is the tag from Kate's gift to me - "Mom! The Bomb." And inside was a "gift certificate" to Kate's "spa" - she said I could use it many times or bring a bunch of friends and have a party at her spa (bedroom). 

I think I might invite my friends over! 

'Twas the Night Before Christmas . . .

The girls wrote their letters to Santa and placed them by his milk and cookies they hand selected . . .

Kate put on Mike's head lamp to check out the chimney situation . . .

Mike made a tradition White Russian and a Bailey on the rocks for me . . . 

The girls peeked at the gifts one last time . . .

Sound asleep by 8:30 p.m.

Sound asleep by 9:00 p.m.

We were given strict orders to go to them at same time as the girls - so we hurried to get to bed as well. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.