Christmas

It was a nice, quiet and semi-sweaty Christmas. Unlike our friends and most of our family, we were in 70 degree weather for Christmas and the next day it was 78.....we slept with the A/C on.....crazy I know. Laurel was worried that Santa wouldn't show up cause it wasn't snowing in TX. Anyhow, Christmas eve, we went to a friend's house, Diana Reichert, and had a nice turkey dinner. She had invited a few families. It was a lot of fun to interact with so many kids even if they weren't related to me. We even got to act out the nativity story and then Diana, who is sweet beyond words, gave everyone some type of nativity present. Laurel got a felt board, Connor and Gavin got their own ornaments and Tim and I got a pretty one from Willow Tree(which just happens to be a favorite thing of mine). The only down fall is that my camera went on the blitz and wouldn't take any pictures(just a few video clips) so I will have to wait until Diana gives me copies of the ones I took with her camera. It was a fun night and filled in the little aching space that I had from wanting to be with my family and in the midst of all that beloved chaos. We came home and Tim was nice enough to let the kids open 2 presents each. One was the prerequisite pair of new pj's and the other was whatever they wanted to pick. Laurel opened a gift from a neighbor-it was a teddy bear, Gavin opened one from Tim and I-it was a McFarlane Dragon, and Connor opened a gift from Colleen-it was an action figure from Ironman.



The next morning, we were awoken at about 7am by our kids and we stumbled down to our living room to happily rip into all of the fun things that Santa had left for us. Santa leaves each child their very own sack full of toys in our family. Connor's big gift this year was a remote controlled Walle. He also got a cool tin robot from Grandmama that he adored. Gavin really lucked out and was gifted with a Nintendo DS lite and 2 games. And he hit Bakugan pay dirt....he ended up with about 16 altogether. Laurel got her favorite(for now) Barbie, Diamond Castle Princess, who sings songs when you press her hand....she seems to know them all already and sings them loudly every time. She also got her very own Disney Princess Laptop(the fake kind with games loaded on it) She takes her "puter" everywhere. It is very cute. They all got lots of knick knacks in their stockings too. We will have little pieces galore for the next couple of months. I then snuck back upstairs and slept for another couple of hours because for Christmas I got a cold. Fun for everyone....Ha.





That night we had our neighbors come over and share a Christmas dinner. The Ditzlers are a fun family with 3 boys ages 10,6, and 4. We had a nice time talking and just hanging out.
The next morning, I slept in and refused to get out of my pj's. In fact, I napped and ate junk food most of the day and then rotted my brain out watching fun TV movies. The kids ran in and out of the house, playing with all the neighborhood kids and showing off all their new toys and seeing what all the other kids got. The holiday season was a good one. And it could have only been better if we could have spent it with family.