This Christmas has been so wonderful!  The season has been long and I feel like we’ve soaked it in.  We’ve watched Christmas Vacation and Elf more times than I can count (they’re great background movies).  On Christmas Day we watched Home Alone 1 and 2.  And Christmas Eve we watched The Grinch.  I love Christmas Movies!!

The kids didn’t get up incredibly early on Christmas morning.  They got up around regular time….6:30.  From what I hear some kids get up later than that.  We’ve never had that happen though.  All of our kids are early risers.  As in, sleeping to 7:00 is sleeping in for us.  Even when the kids aren’t at home my internal alarm goes off.  I digress.  So, the kids got up and we all got ready for church.  We had just enough time to open up our stockings before we left for church.  The kids got some fun little things in their stockings, crayons, stampers, notebooks, pencils, erasers, jelly belly’s, star wars cup, legos, etc.  I loved my stocking growing up (and still do).  It’s was the “dessert” of Christmas.  The goodies after the big presents.  It made me giddy.  And Caden, of course, takes after me.  I mean, the degree to which we are alike boggles the mind.

So we headed to church ON TIME!  And got there at 8:30.  I mean that’s pretty crazy because we don’t get to church that early on a regular Sunday.  Why we were able to do it on Christmas is just a conundrum.  It really was a Christmas miracle.  We ate breakfast and then let the kids play in our little indoor playground.  We headed into the service at about 10:15.  The kids were semi-controlled during the singing part.  I resorted to feeding them jelly beans to keep them quiet toward the end.  During the preaching we headed to the atrium so the kids could play and color on the tables.  Ella Kate was in rare form.  She DID NOT want to sit still.  We toughed it out until the end of the service and then headed out toot suite.

Mom and Dad came to our house Christmas Day since we were in Huntsville Christmas Eve and were headed back on the 26th.  We had soup and sandwiches for lunch with strawberry pretzel salad and veggies.  I made short work of the 9 x 13 pan of strawberry pretzel salad.  I finished it off Wednesday night.  I can safely say I ate 2/3 of that ALL.  BY.  MYSELF.  I can strawberry pretzel salad for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and snack.  I love it.  Anyways, we did a little scavenger hunt for the kids after we ate lunch.  We get them one big thing every year and do a scavenger hunt for them to find it (my parents did that for me every year and I LOVED it!).  Our kids LOVE IT TOO!  They would run as fast as they could from one clue to the next.  They had such a good time.  Their favorite part of the hunt was one of the clues that said, “Go and find the main computer, I promise your present won’t be a tooter.”  Oh, potty humor gets them every time.  Their big present was a roller coaster.  It was a BIG hit!  EK went down it approximately 142 times that day alone.  They also got new big wheel’s from neena and pops (and EK got a radio flyer tricycle), and it was not a moment too soon either.  They literally rode their last Big Wheel until the wheels fell off.  I mean it really did fall into 3 pieces.  The screws came out.  The handle bars fell off.  And it had 2 holes in the wheel.  They loved that thing.  There was much despair and mourning the night it died.  I had to tell them they *might* get a newer better one for Christmas but they had to be patient.

We opened presents with Neena and Pops and then relaxed all afternoon.  EK took a nap and the boys played.  I took a short nap with EK and then woke up and watched Evan Almighty, which is very entertaining.  Before Neena and Pops left we made Christmas tree “cone-ifers” which has become a yearly tradition we got from a book we’ve done every year (except this one).  It’s a sugar cone you turn upside down, ice with green frosting, and decorate.  Caden decorated his beautifully, JL did his quickly so he could get back to playing, and EK couldn’t get past eating the icing and then eating the cone.

After that we decorated Christmas cookies.  This is the first time I’ve allowed them to totally decorate by themselves and it was comical.  They had the best time.  It was a complete mess and the cookies probably didn’t taste good at all.  I wouldn’t know because I didn’t try them.  But, I wouldn’t trade the fun they had decorating them for the world.

     

Christmas night we got the kids to bed and then I stayed up till 1am taking down Christmas.  I get it up at the beginning of November and by Christmas I’m ready to get back to normal.  I left the tree up, but everything else came down.  The tree is actually still up and will be until after new years probably.

The day after Christmas we went to my Meemaw and Papaws house.  We had fun with them doing Bible Trivia, singing some songs, and fellowshipping with family.  My cousin Courtney came home with us and stayed a couple of days.  We had a good time catching up with her.  She was a huge help too because she kept the boys while I went to therapy with EK and while Jeb and I had to do physicals for life insurance.    We all love Courtney!

Next up, Christmas with Jeb’s side of the family for New Year’s.  I’ll be back soon with that and an update on regular life things too.