Christmas in Wisconsin

We trekked up to Wisconsin on the day after Christmas, which is also Jodi's birthday. We had a little birthday celebration for her that evening. Having a birthday to close to Christmas is probably a bummer. But having family together on your birthday just about every year is a definite plus! 

Jodi then hosted our family Christmas a couple days later. She and her family live in our family's old house, so it's fun that we still get to have our Christmases there. 

Conrad, Bennett, and Bella.

We played this game called "Bad People" that consists of cards with a description of a terrible thing a person might do. The person who draws the card has to decide who among us would be most likely to do that bad thing. Now that I'm typing this out, it doesn't sounds like a great idea to play at Christmas, but we had a blast. For the cards that we didn't want to assign to anyone, we gave them to Branko, who is four and can't read. It was always hilarious who he ended up giving the card to! 

Graydon gets bonus family birthdays since his birthday typically falls while we're up in WI after Christmas. We celebrated a few days early with the Benetti side and then again on his actual birthday.

On December 30th, we left Kenosha and headed west to Verona. Before arriving at Andy's parents' house, we stopped at a Madison bowling alley to watch our nephew Charlie in a tournament. We don't get to see our nieces and nephews in action all that often, so when it all lines up, we are so happy to participate. That evening, we went out for a special dinner because Andy's mom turned 75 on Christmas Day!

The newest family member on the Kilps side is Tom's new golden retriever named Moose. (My sister also has a dog named Moose, so we spent our break with two Mooses!) Both Mooses are super sweet dogs. 

Graydon requested Chipotle on his actual birthday, so we went there for lunch. Chipotle is probably his favorite restaurant right now. 

He doesn't bowl as much these days, but he still enjoys it and wanted that to be his birthday activity that evening. 

More ice cream cake! 

The kids must have played this game for at least three hours. I never learned the rules, but they were all thoroughly entertained by it! And I saw minimal phone activity by any of them, so that's saying something.

New Year's Day was a lazy day of lounging around, playing cards, and chatting. It was the perfect way to ease into the new year.

We left Verona on January 2nd to head back home since I needed to work the next day. I had a full work day on Friday. Then we ended up with a snowstorm Sunday into Monday. School was called off on Monday and, long story short, we ended up out of school for the entire week! I'm not going to lie, these slow days at home have been awesome. January is my month of hibernation when I let myself move slower and be lazier and I don't feel bad about it. These snow days have definitely allowed me to hibernate and I have been so thankful for the slower pace.