Passing Time

Eric has had quite a bit of time off while I've been on break from school (thankfully). He had some vacation days to use up along with already getting Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day off. With Cate feeling a bit under the weather from both the stomach flu and the regular flu (both of which hit her within a week of each other), we've been lying low at home. And you know what? We kind of started to like it.

We bought a puzzle and started working on it one night over break.
It's a Picture-Eka! puzzle meant for the whole family-- so half of it has larger pieces. 350 pieces in total, and when you finish, there's additional stuff to "hunt" for (kind of like Where's Waldo?).
It was fun putting it together over the course of a few days. My parents and siblings even helped out while they were in town. We kept it on one of the leftover carpet tiles from the basement so that we could move it around or put it up and away from little hands.
We liked it so much, we're going to tackle another one. It's a 1000 piece-er that Eric picked out of the Santa Barbara Mission.

Playing games, like Bananagrams has also become a fun way to pass the time together. Especially by the light of the Christmas tree (which will be coming down soon...sniff, tear, boo hoo, sniff). Cate can't really "play" games yet, so we play after she goes to bed. Although she did enjoy dumping all of the banana tiles out and then putting them back in the banana.
We've also been doing a lot of reading...all three of us. Even though we're not reading the same book, it's nice to just sit on the couch after Cate goes to bed and read with Eric right there, reading too.
Sometimes we sit on the couch and watch movies. Going to the movies is EXPENSIVE! We love Redbox $1 rentals and free rentals from the library. Just pop some popcorn, pop open a cold beverage (or brew a hot one), and enjoy!
We've also been making a mess in the basement! The new toys are so much fun!
We used to be a very on-the-go kind of family...and we do still enjoy going places and seeing things. But over this break, we've also discovered more of the comforts of home. What things do you enjoy at home?

~Melody :-)

P.S. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of this too... :-)