I’ve been playing around with an idea for awhile, and thought this would be a good weekend to roll it out. Here at Casa Stro, every Saturday is Pancake Saturday. It’s a tradition that began when I was a child growing up, and one that I have carried over, now, with my children.

In a pancake recipe, as you know, you put in a little of this, a little of that, and that is what I will do in this new weekly feature. Some of the things that occur aren’t really big enough for a post of its own, so this will be a mish-mosh of events happening throughout the week.

On Monday we traveled with children. It was the first time since arriving home with the kids that we have taken a trip of any magnitude. We drove over 250 miles with the kids (in one day!). We broke it up into a few segments, but it still took about 5 or 6 hours, including all the stops and starts. For the most part the kids did well, and we arrived to the ecstatic greetings of our family. We visited with relatives for a bit and the kids got to be fussed over for awhile, before heading to the hotel. My oldest son loves hotels. He has always loved hotels, and this trip was no different, except he had company in the “hotel loving department!”

On Tuesday, we gave each of the children a small gift and then we headed back to the house to see our family. We don’t really celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense with decorations and lots of gifts, since we don’t know the true date of Christ’s birth. But we do acknowledge that He did come to earth, and that this is a special day the world sets aside to remember that birth, whenever it occurred.

Our family had gone all out for our trip up there. My brother-in-law has a good friend who is a magician and arranged for an elaborate show for the kids. The kids were fascinated and had a lot of fun. After a very looooooong day, with fun, food and family, we headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday saw us getting up really early to eat and head back home. After another grueling 6 hours on the road, and a “consequence” or two, we arrived home. Because our wedding anniversary is New Year’s Eve, we have a family tradition of opening one gift every day between the day after Christmas and our anniversary (similar to Kwanzaa, though we do not celebrate it, either). It gives us a chance to hit the after Christmas sales, as well, and the kids love this time of year. They get to savor each of their presents instead of opening a bunch at once and getting overwhelmed at deciding which one to play with!

Thursday and Friday were much the same, in terms of opening one gift each day and playing with toys. We also baked cookies.

Then, this morning, we opened our daily gift and had the obligatory pancake breakfast. My youngest turns five during this next week, and so cards and gifts are beginning to trickle in for him, as well. We have a lot of celebrations going on this week!

So, we had a little bit of everything thrown in, but it was a great week with our new family and our existing family, old traditions and new.

Photo credit: Stock Xchng