This year's was lovely and great but I am thrilled that it's over for now.
Christmas Eve we actually got the house neat and tidy (for Santa, which is good motivation for the kids) and they played nicely together with Luke's Little People camper set from his birthday. Wishing I hadn't gotten them so many new toys now...Earlier in the day, Mark and the kids went out with his company on a horse and carriage to deliver presents to some needy families. They had fun but it took forever and they're hoping that if they have to do it next year, they'll just stick to going in a truck so it won't take three hours out in the cold to visit three houses!
We watched a Charlie Brown Christmas special, read some Christmas stories and ended with The Night Before Christmas. And then Madelyn couldn't get to sleep till 11:30pm, compounded by the fact that Mark had told her Santa would skip our house if she was still awake. THANKS, DEAR. So we were all up very very late.
But Santa finally did come!
Luke was still sick and was cranky getting up, until he saw the new train set Santa had left. Then it was present opening frenzy for everyone for a while. Madelyn's favorite present was her Animal doll and dragon blanket. Mark's was his new Turtle Beach XBox headset, and Luke's was his giant new green dart gun.
Mine was my new nerdy tees. I got this George Harrison one for myself, and a Doctor Who/Belle one, and Nadia got me a TARDIS one. I also got twelve new gray hairs that had sprouted sometime during the past two weeks from stress. AWESOME.
Madelyn eventually dragged Tiger out from under our bed to join the festivities.
Then I crashed and had to take a nap for a few hours because I hadn't had a good night's rest in weeks and could not physically go on. Mark took a nap too, then we had lunch and finally lumbered out to the car to visit friends and family for the rest of the day at 2:30 pm.
First we swung by and saw our friends the Jowers in Toquerville. Madelyn and Kelty remind me of Rapunzel pre and post-haircut (one with long blond hair and the other with a choppy brunette bob). The weather was so nice!!
Then we went to see my brother Kevin and his family. They are living in his wife Lori's parent's house with their three kids Hattie, Jack and Gary. My parents and Megan also came over so we could exchange gifts and stuff. We gave Gary a new vacuum and he loves it. His daddy was totally obsessed with vacuums as a little kid, it's so funny that his son is now too.
Megan got a Maurader's Map (from Harry Potter). It was sooo cooollll.
And then we all went upstairs and had a huge turkey dinner (even though we hadn't been planned on or invited). But the Reeves are so friendly and there was a ton of food so they welcomed us to eat.
My mom and Gary. He is a delicious baby. She said, "He looks like a Murset!" Well, he IS a Murset.
Then we went over to Mark's parent's house. Thankfully they only live about five minutes from everybody else we were visiting.
Mark's mom had bought this sweet wooden ping pong ball catapult and the kids LOVED it. Luke asked me, "Mama, can we buy this?" Haha
It's always fun to visit Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Frank! (Luke had just started in on a tantrum--long day.)
Then we finally got home and crashed. The next day I had a doctor's appointment and a ton of errands to run. The kids stayed in their jammies the entire day and we didn't get much accomplished.
Although the kids had used Madelyn's new decorative edge scissors to make confetti.....we spent all day today cleaning up and putting Christmas decorations away. There are still odds and ends to do tomorrow, but thank heavens the worst of it is over. I'm planning on sleeping in every single day until the kids get back in school. Can I get an amen?!?
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