King's Day (and New Year)

So I had planned to write a post on each of the twelve days of Xmas, to build up suspense to King's day, but normal life seemed a little boring. Also, having put up three posts in a row without a single comment confirmed that ;-). So a little bit of an update  before we dive into presents. Kristin's sister was here until the day after New Year, so she got to be with us putting presents under the tree each night. Kristin decided to one-up my toilet cleaning and went out and vacuumed out my car for several hours (it was sorely needed). I responded the next day by waking up and cleaning all of the kitchen appliances (which almost never happens). All in all it was a lot of fun, and by the end Baby Jesus had lots of good deeds in the manger.

New Years day I made my extremely rich and fluffy eggnog, and Kristin made churros with chocolate. It was awesome. 

Most of the evenings Kristin I spent working in the workshop, trying to get bunk beds and blocks ready. 

The blocks came together, but I realized the night before that my math had been bad and several of my pieces were about 2in too short. So we stayed up super late the 5th trying between the two of us to get it fixed, and eventually gave up and went to bed. No bunk beds :-(.

On the morning of the 6th the kids woke up to find that the shoes they'd left out the night before had been replaced with new ones, full of candy and toys. 

We always seem to go overboard on the candy ;-). We then took turns going around the tree and giving one of our presents to someone else. It was fun to see Eliora give Kaela a new pony to open, or Kaela give Eliora some wooden horses she'd had me make on one of our daddy-daughter dates (ok, yes, they both have a pony fetish). 

The blocks were a big hit, and Kristin gave me several new things for the workshop.

 For my part, my biggest surprise was getting Kristin a French Horn. She played one in high school, oh so long ago, and always gets wistful whenever she hears one. She's always sad and regretful when she talks about how she had to give it up basically because no-one could stand her practicing it :-). So I went on craigslist and found a nice, used horn. I had to do some repair-work on the case, and wrap it up with some books to disguise the case's shape so she wouldn't know what it was. When she opened it, she cried. She said she never realized how much she wanted one. She's way excited to start practicing, and I'm excited to do duets with her. :-)

So all in all it was a great day. We relaxed most of the rest of the day (which I had off work) and played with new toys. Oh, and there was one last surprise as well (of course, I knew about it several days before).

We're expecting, due on/about September 10.