Merry Christmas Eve!

It's been an interesting Christmas season this year. It started wonderful and normal with getting our Christmas tree, baking cookies, buying presents, wrapping presents, snow, lights and more. But then the long, long week of slowly watching Sierra deteriorate kind of put a damper on it all. Getting knocked of our feet with the stomach bug and the whirlwind, emotional day of putting her down really threw me out of the Christmas spirit. Even yesterday as I wrapped gifts, I wasn't enjoying it and frankly kind of depressed. But then God gives us the serenity of sleep and starting our days fresh and new. I prayed upon going to sleep to get out of my slump and get my Christmas spirit back.


Even with a sleep interruption in the middle of the night of Chase wanting a "snack", I woke up happy, kind of refreshed and ready for a busy day. The day included grocery shopping, yes on Christmas Eve. Grocery week happened to fall this week and I was not about to go on Saturday or Sunday so off to Wegmans we all went. It was packed as I knew it would be but I didn't think they would be out of carts. We had to search for one of the bigger ones so we could fit all our groceries. It was painless as long as we went with the mindset it's going to be busy and just deal with it.

A little more running around and home we went, 2.5 hours later. After lunch we all took a nap knowing we had a long evening ahead of us. A good 45 minute nap for me and off I went to bake Christmas cookies. I tried two new recipes and found them tasty....

Got ready, took a family Christmas photo in front of the tree and off we went to Carl's.

Family Christmas #1
(Pictures to follow another day)
We had our first family Christmas tonight and what a wonderful and exciting night. It's so much different adding kids to the mix, especially now that they are older. There were five kids ages, 10, 4, 3, 19 months and 14 months. So all of them are walking/running and had a blast with each other. There was not a quiet moment to be heard but rather laughter, chattering, feet pattering across the floor, and in the background adults trying to have conversations amidst all the "noise."


Even though Grandpa asked for the kids to open one gift at a time because he didn't want it over in 10 minutes like last year, his request was not granted. Try telling kids to slow down and wait for the next person, not when it's 10pm and they want to play. Chase got a big John Deere tractor and many small tractors and animals from Grandpa. He was thrilled. And he received a new "Where's Spot" book with the lift up flaps, he already has this book but some of the flaps are bent and one torn off so he was excited for a brand new one.


It was an interesting evening in the gift giving department. My SIL and I bought Carl the same exact gift, two to be exact. He was all excited when he opened the Harley Davidson book and I was so happy he loved it until I saw it wasn't my wrapping paper and realized Casey and Adam had gotten the same one. Plus they got him the same blanket but I ended up forgetting ours at home so that was fine. It was too funny because we ordered them from the same catalog. I guess it's not too bad first time in 13 years.

And then when Brad opened his present, which was Madden 2010, he looked at it funny. The store had left the entire security device still on it. We asked Carl if we stole it.

And then Carl bought Ella a little four-wheeler, the same exact one he bought Chase last year and Chase thought it was his. He finished opening it for Ella and wanted to ride it. Thankfully he let Uncle Randy take it home and didn't pitch a fit. He was happy to play the piano or with his tractors.

I am officially exhausted but ready for a fun family Christmas tomorrow morning. I let Chase open one gift tonight which was a little stuffed Elmo. He loved it and took it everywhere with him tonight.