Ruple Farms - where a full-time working mom of two manages her mini farm

Christmas Staycation Day 4 - Christmas Eve

We made it to Christmas Eve!

We woke up suuuuuper late.

We didn't get home until after 11pm last night and I didn't settle in until well after midnight.

I'm in vacation mode, what can I say!?

We woke up...at...10am.

We are supposed to be at the grandparents around 11am.

It takes about 40 minutes to get there.

We wouldn't be that late, right?

Well, if you're Steve Ruple, you would've waited until this morning to go out and get his parents a gift.

First of all, don't even try to blame me and say that I should be on top of that shit.

Nope. Sorry, I used to be.

But with the addition of kids, their friends, birthdays, my parents (separately), my sister, our nieces, etc. we decided a while ago that his parents would be his responsibility.

I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to the holidays - don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the holidays too. But things that bring me happiness can also cause a lot of anxiety.

Anyway.

So he waited until Christmas Eve morning to get something for his parents.

Only we woke up super late.

But, I'm just not surprised or annoyed anymore.

I don't get as much anxiety about not getting his parents anything (let's be real, they want and need nothing and just want to spend time with us).

But, we gave them pictures of the girls and the girls wrote them and drew them a little card.

I can't get over her little butt.

Family tradition of hands on the tree skirt.

And measuring the babies against the pocket door. Steve has the one from his grandpa's house that has him and Lisa's heights.

Getting so big!

Ice Cream craft from Aunt Lisa and family

Necklace from Patty and Ted

Lego set from Aunt Lisa and Family

How to Catch A Unicorn book from Grammie and Papa

Spoiled and very loved little girls!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at their house, chatting and catching up. The girls had plenty to do.

Tomorrow they are going to Uncle Joey's house and meeting up with some other folks from their old high school days.

We will be celebrating at home tomorrow morning just the 4 of us, then having my sister over for lunch/dinner.

We got home and the girls enjoyed more of their toys and I prepped our Holiday Roast Beast.

I got a 6.8lb bone-in prime rib roast

A very simple seasoning: salt, pepper, onion powder. I crushed my own black peppercorns.

Generously brush with olive oil and seasoning mix - remember, there's a lot of meat to season! It seemed like a crazy amount to put on, but I had to remember how much meat there really is. Plus, I followed a recipe ;) I let it sit overnight in the fridge. 2-3 hours before I rotisserie it, I will pull it out to let it get up to room temperature.

We put the girls to bed early, despite arguments to let them sleep on the couch so they could try to catch Santa in the act.

I'm so hesitant with how to tell Mila.

When I was putting her to bed and telling her that Santa would bring gifts, she was like "or you and daddy will put them under the tree...and maybe Santa will bring one too."

So, I pretty much think she knows. Sigh.

Regardless, I still believe in the magic.

So to me, Santa came:

Of course new matching jammies on Christmas Eve

My babies!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Staycation Day 3

My plan for today (Monday, if you're following along with me), was to run last minute errands during the day before we went to the show, later in the evening.

We had to stop at the post office to get the packages out to Steve's sister and her family (listen, I would've done this weeks ago, but this is his responsibility. I did purchase the gifts, but mistakenly had them shipped to our house, instead of theirs).

Don't ask how much we paid to get this delivered by tomorrow. LOLOL

ANYWAY.

While we were at the post office dealing with that, we figured we may as well get our applications in for our new passports.

I dunno if it's my county, but the guy who dealt with us was fabulous. His name is Tom and he was extremely pleasant and made jokes with us the entire time. An absolute delight. I say the thing about 'our county' because our DMV is also pretty awesome. Not a place that typically has a good reputation. Ours is fantastic. The ladies there are super friendly and everyone is super casual. I've never had a bad experience there.

Luckily for Steve, since his is recently expired, he simply had to renew his. New photo, pay for it. Done.

My kids are confused on what holiday is coming up. (Ava's wearing a spiderweb dress and Mila is wearing devil horns).

Passport photo. A little disheveled.

Me...well...I'm 3 weeks past the limit of renewal.

3 fucking weeks.

So I had to go through the application process again with different paperwork.

New photo.

Pay.

Done.

After that, I dropped Steve and Ava off at the barbershop and Mila and I went and did some last minute shopping.

We enjoyed the sunny day.

55 degrees and sunny! It felt like a warm spring day. Definitely NOT a white Christmas.

We made our way to Wegmans to pick up our Christmas dinner. I'm planning a 6lb bone-in rib roast, arugula salad (free with my top 100 coupon), & potatoes.

It was PACKED at Wegmans. It was absolute bananas in there.

I had Mila with me, so she could keep up as I weaved in and out of people to get my shit.

After that, we went and picked up Steve and Ava.

Getting the beard shaped up.

Apparently she just hangs out (Steve usually takes one or both girls with him to the barbershop. Not sure why, it's one of their "things").

We went home, ate a late lunch and just chilled before getting ready for the Lion King.

The show was amazing.

Just what I imagined.

We got home VERY late. But it was a fantastic day.

My heart is full!

Christmas Staycation Day 2

Welp.

It was a lazy, pajama-wearing, movie-watching, kinda day.

Steve went out last night (Saturday) to meet up with some friends from work.

Since the girls had an eventful previous night, we called it an early night for them,

We made them head up at 8pm, before Steve left for the night.

I got to enjoy a nice quiet evening to myself, watching my holiday baking shows.

Sunday was a perfectly lazy day.

Except for when Steve asked me to go out and get him some headache medicine.

Because he was hungover.

Because he drank too much whiskey last night (he Ubered home, thankfully).

I made the girls a pretty delicious breakfast, if I do say so myself! Mangoes, bacon and rainbow pancakes? C'mon.

LOL. This is me at 9am going to get Steve his medicine. I'm a good wife. But folks, this is what he's blessed with. LOL. A lil' makeup does one good!

And because I didn't know what I was supposed to get.

I was huffing about having to go out to get him the medicine and when I get home, I see that our mailbox was open. I stopped to check and saw this! Super sweet from our neighbor across the street.

Steve stayed in bed recovering while I got down to business. This is the first year that I've wrapped gifts in front of the girls - these were for other people, but I've always wrapped presents when they were not around. Steve and I would normally hide all gifts and then they would all appear Christmas morning.

I'm struggling with how to break the news to Mila...she's already asked a few times and I think the time is near that she's not going to buy it any longer.

So if I slowly start to integrate the whole gift wrapping thing. I was all "these are for aunt Jennifer, these are for daddy, and some are for you! But don't worry, Santa will bring other things." I have NO idea if I'm doing the right thing.

They didn't seem to care.

They actually spent quite a bit of the morning upstairs playing separately (not by choice) because they were fighting so badly. Sometimes I don't understand why they play together when they are arguing. It's like - it's OK to not play with each other once in a while!

They came down to help.

I really tried to keep it reasonable this year. I remember a few years ago I went nuts with the whole presents thing and the girls got super overwhelmed. Like...couldn't get through the gifts. So I try to keep it reasonable. They each don't get more than maybe 10 or so things. Maybe one "kinda expensive" thing and a few others. Stocking stuffers don't count. Books, art, crafts, doll accessories, etc.

My favorite. Wrapping presents while watching holiday baking shows.

Steve finally made it out to the couch around 2pm. The girls played decently during the afternoon and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep a bit on the couch with Steve.

I woke up and realized I still hadn't gone grocery shopping yet. I decided to make one quick trip to Aldi's then hit up Wegmans tomorrow (I need to get my Prime Rib Roast!) before we go see the Lion King.

Day 2 was uneventful, lazy and just what I needed.

I'm absolutely looking forward to Day 3. We have a busy day planned. Grocery shopping, last minute Christmas shopping. And then, LION KING!

Christmas Staycation Day 1

We're off to a great start!

I would say we officially kicked off our 16 day long staycation last night (Friday). Mila had a sleepover and Steve was working, so it was just me and Ava.

I picked them up early from daycare Friday and stopped at Wegmans to grab dinner.

Mila had her friend's ice skating performance at 6, so after dropping her off, Ava and I came home and watched the Little Mermaid and played with some of her new toys.

Let me tell ya, one kid is so much easier than two kids.

No arguing.

It's so quiet.

Anyway, we let Ava sleep in bed with us and watched Toy Story 2 while we all fell asleep.

I'd say Ava had a great (low key) 5th birthday.

Today marks the Office Day One of staycation.

We made plans to go sledding with some friends at our old elementary school.

We literally slid (sledded?) down this exact same hill 30 years ago.

Fuuuck.

But, it was a gorgeous day! And we had a ton of fun. We have been battling single digit temperatures here the last few days. I'm super glad today was in the upper 20's, low 30's when we were sledding.

We met up with Steve's BFF (our best man) and his daughter (who is 4 days older than Ava) and our buddy Rich and his 4 boys. His 4 boys are all within 3.5 years of each other (there's a set of twins in there!) I love having a bunch of kids around!