I took a week off and apparently spent it eating!

Hi!  Welcome back to the blog!  As you can see, I took a little break from things over here to enjoy Christmas. 

Well, and honestly, when everyone is home, I can't blog but everyone is back to their normal routine today (finally!) so here I am!

And let me just say go ahead and get this out of the way:

According to my scale, I was fine before Dan got home from Seattle but this morning, it told me otherwise.  Apparently all I did the past week was eat.  So, this was my breakfast this morning:

Gonna try to do the low carb for a little bit just to get back in gear.  I'm not starting any new diet or anything, I just fill like I probably had enough carbs over the last couple of weeks to last me for a while so less of them can only be better for me.

However, that's the exact breakfast I had yesterday morning and look what I got yesterday afternoon:

Yep.  Donuts.  In my defense, there's a new donut shop that my parents were raving about so I had to see what the fuss was all about.  I ate the lovely red velvet cake donut and had a bite of Dan's chocolate glazed donut which was filled with a delicious white cream.  They were yummy but hopefully I can resist all the sugar and all the carbs today.  Willpower - not my strong suit.

So, where were we?  Yes!  Christmas!  Dan finally arrived home on Christmas Eve and promptly did this:

And then he got up for a little bit and promptly went right back to napping.  The red-eye will do that to you!

We went to my old church on Christmas Eve for their Lovefeast and Candlelight service.  It was beautiful!  Afterwards my family and my BFF's family came back here for appetizers and festivity!

It was a great evening and I took zero pictures.  I'm so bad about that! 

I had to set my alarm on Christmas morning because I knew everyone was going to be sound asleep.  And I was right.  I got up at 7:30, put the breakfast casserole in the oven, had a cup of coffee and then got everyone out of bed.  Long gone are the days when the kids are up before dawn.  I kind of miss that.

We opened our stockings.  It's tradition that Santa brings tons of stocking stuffers and we always open those first. 

After the great gift unwrapping, we ate breakfast and then got ready for Mass.  After Mass, we went to my parent's house for lunch.  My mom fixed everything that we would normally have in Wellesley for Christmas day lunch.  Then we unwrapped presents there and y'all I totally forgot to get pictures of all of us unwrapping our gifts.  I didn't even realize it until I got home. 

But, I did remember to get the annual Tesh Family photo that we have been taking since 1997!

And then, after that, Christmas day was over.  And then apparently I proceeded to eat until New Year's! 

We did manage to get in a  couple of fun family things during the week between Christmas and New Year's.  We headed to Grandfather Mountain last Wednesday.  It was a very warm day and we enjoyed the time together.  And Dan and the kids walked across the Mile High Swinging Bridge.  I however, did not.   I am still traumatized by the time I went across it when I was about 10.  Although, they have since upgraded it and it not longer actually swings like it did when I was a kid.  Still didn't go across it though.

And on Friday, we headed to Charlotte and ate lunch at Midwood Smokehouse.  So good!

And then headed to Reed Gold Mine which is the site of the first gold discovery (1799) in the United States.

On New Year's Eve, we went with a group of friends to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner (and I got zero pictures) and then we headed back to Jennifer's house to hang out and wait for the ball to drop.

And I only got one picture and it's of Sarah and Cheyanne after they mixed up some good old fashioned Shirley Temples!

And just like that - our TWO WEEK vacation is over. 

Sarah, who normally takes forever to go to sleep, actually got to sleep at a decent hour last night but woke up this morning at 4:00 wide awake and raring to go.  She came downstairs a little before 6:00 while I was drinking my coffee.  Peter, who normally goes right to sleep, apparently tossed and turned last night until after 2:00 so he was hard to get up this morning.  But I was able to get Dan and the kids out the door and off to work and school and it's time for me to get the groceries!

This afternoon we have an orthodontist appointment and a basketball game and I'm sure the kids will have a ton of homework.  I guess it's back to life, back to reality!

Happy New Year!