I haven't blogged in days and truly don't know where to start. I have about a dozen blog posts swirling around in my head and lots of pictures to post but for tonight we will go with a random thoughts post. I'm not up for sorting through pictures right now. Ollie and I have a date to watch "Monk" here shortly so I don't have a lot of time. If he fizzles out on me then I'll post some pictures.
How was your Christmas? Ours was wonderful. Busy, busy, busy!!! With three kids and lots of gifts I have spent hours undoing twisty ties, clipping tiny rubber bands, cutting my way into packages that the toy people make nearly impossible to get through. I've put together things, read lots of directions, listened to endless chatter, took lots of pictures, and even opened a few gifts myself. We celebrate Christmas a little differently at our house. We are just starting to have our own traditions. Up until last year we have traveled at Christmas almost every year of our married life. We went every year to Georgia and Chicago. We have so many wonderful memories but have decided that we've reached a point where we want to be home for Christmas. We've done a pretty good job of melding our ideas of how Christmas should be and this is how we do it. Because pretty much all of our family, with the exception of Aunt Harriet and Uncle Billy, live out of state we end up with lots of presents under our tree. They come in packages from GA and Chicago in the weeks before Christmas. We wake up on Christmas Eve and the kids get to pick a present to open. After they open their presents they start right in playing with whatever they opened while I start breakfast. We have a nice breakfast together and then they get to open another present and then play with that. As the day goes on every hour or two Ollie will announce that it's time to open another present. This goes on all day. We didn't finish this year until about 9 o'clock. I absolutely love this day, it's probably my favorite day of the year. We have time to really look at, figure out, and play with each and every thing they get. If it's a game, we open it up and play it. If it's a CD, we open it and listen to it. If it's Littlest Pet Shop (a major theme this year) or Polly dolls--the kids open them and head out into the yard to play some elaborately wonderful game. We eat a nice dinner together and the girls and I go to church. Our church doesn't do a Christmas eve service so we pick a local church to visit. Last year was wonderful. This year.... well, let's just say that is its own blog post. Aunt Clara is visiting and she and Harriet and Billy joined us at church and then we all came back to our house for Peppermint Cake. We closed the evening with "virtual Christmas" by way of the webcam with Ollie's family. We got to watch them open our gifts to them. We also visited a couple of times with them earlier in the day by way of webcam. It was so weird and nice, it felt like we were sitting in their living room with them. After a busy day the kids were off to bed. We don't do Santa Claus but we do fill their stockings after they are in bed. In the morning, they woke up and opened their stockings and played for a couple of hours before we all went to Aunt Harriet's and Uncle Billy's for the day. We had a great day there. We opened lots of presents--not as slowly as we did at our house but slow enough that I could keep up with what they were getting. We ate off and on all day and tried out all the new toys and games. We got LOTS of games, some really fun, educational games. I will be doing a game review post here in the near future. I think you guys should all know about some of these wonderful games. We got home last night with enough time left to finish the day off by watching "Elf." Julie--have you seen this yet????
So, that's how we spent our Christmas. It looks like "Monk" will be postponed until tomorrow so I will post some pictures of all the festivities.
I love this picture--click on it to enlarge it and see Hannah posing in the background. Funny.
Hannah spent a lot of time doing this yesterday--texting. She got "texters" which are basically walkie-talkies that you text back and forth with instead of talking. She has been begging for these ever since she saw them. She was one happy little girl.
A Lego Batman game! Joe loves these Lego games. He already got Lego Indiana Jones as an early Christmas present. I may never get to use my computer again....
This is what Joe did for a good part of the day.
Hannah filling in her Littlest Pet Shop digital planner.
This nail art kit turned out to be a big hit--Hannah did everyone's nails, including Aunt Clara's. Hannah did hers pink with black stripes.
And Jane (Uncle Billy's sister) got snakes on her toes. I got bumblebees but don't have a picture.
I really, really wish I had had my video camera on when Grace opened this. It is her very own digital camera. She wanted one so bad but was sure she would not be getting one. The look of "shock and awe" on her face when she opened it was priceless. She spent the rest of the day taking pictures of EVERYTHING!!!! She is absolutely loving having her own camera.
Doing a little kitchen chemistry with Uncle Billy. This was some sort of acid test. She is our little scientist and got a chemistry kit and a microscope. She yanked a hair out of Joe's head to look at under the microscope. I'm not sure what else she investigated. She had Jane helping her out.
Here's Aunt Clara opening a gift. I think she enjoyed her Christmas!
