Christmas!

Jeremy was gone for 3 of the last 4 1/2 months, it was rough.  He would be gone for a month, and just when we got into the swing of things he would be able to come home for 3 weeks and we'd have to start the whole process over again.  This was probably one of the roughest few months ever for me and the kiddos, plus during the last time we found out that we would be having 2 of our close friends move away.  Needless to say, I was a little down.  However, Jeremy was able to come home 10 days before Christmas and turned things around.  A couple of days after he'd been home, I looked back at the past few months and it made me so grateful for all of the friends and family that helped us get through it all.  And made me so grateful to have a husband who is so missed when he is gone.  It really put me into the Christmas spirit and made everything seem more magical.  Christmas is magical anyway when you have a 6 and almost 3 year old!

Love these two.

Cora's happy reunion with Dad, and Will's happy reunion with Dad's iPad.

I think Cora ate half the candy. 

And Will ate half the frosting.

We left it down where the kids could get at it and it was pretty much demolished within a couple days.

We also did our traditional trip to the Christkindlemarket downtown.  It was so fun because for some reason it was not crowded at all.

The kids wrote a last letter to Santa at Marshall Fields.

And we got to eat underneath their famous Christmas tree in the Walnut Room.  It was magical.  They had fairies that came and had kids make special wishes.  Cora wouldn't wash off the glitter they put on her for a couple days.  Will wiped it off immediately.

Opening a present Christmas Eve.

Oh, a new blanket!

My mom made these two new blankets for Christmas this year.  It was perfect, they got to snuggle and won't fight over my holy and worn out one my mom made me 13 years ago.

Opening Christmas socks!  We didn't get any more pictures after this...we were too busy having fun!

Later that evening we were able to have a couple of families over for dinner.  Since our kids are older now, they just played while we got to play a competitive game of Ligretto.  It was so fun, and our kids had a blast too.