Dec 24th

Christmas Eve starts at Nana's house, bright and early!
Breakfast, gifts, and GAMES! For the most part, we can all hang out for a while for some fun before we start heading to Christmas dinners. It's so nice to not have to rush anywhere for a while.

We are very "traditional" at Nana's, at least- they are our traditions! We open gifts one at a time, youngest to oldest and clap for every gift :) You learn the rules quickly. And there are a lot of people in the room, so once you find your seat, it's safest if you just stay there.





Waiting for Nana to give them their "stockings"...


GOOD NEWS! Layla was feeling better :) Not quite yet for me...


Next up... Meme's.

The brothers three.




Clothes for their new AG dolls!
And DIRTY Santa.

Not dirty-dirty, just dirty-spirited ;)

MORE GOOD NEWS: I was feeling relatively normal by the end of the night AND it started snowing!!

EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS: Everyone gets to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's room on Christmas Eve :)

Dec 23rd

Jesus' birthday party!
Lots o' fun except... Layla and I spent it S.I.C.K. She vomitted off and on all day, and as soon as she finished unwrapping her gifts, she went to bed :(

About half-way thru opening gifts, I realized I had it. YUCK YUCK YUCK.

Jesus did have a cake though and I think I heard the little kids sing "Happy Birthday" at one point? I can't say for sure.

Cale opened his first box of clothes. I was thrilled! His response? "Oh no, this is bad." haha. Two of his shirts were hot pink (and so, so cute!). He kind of liked at least one of them at first bc it as a gorilla playing drums on it, but later this week when we tried to put it on him, he strongly protested bc "it's pink!" and then once we did get it on him, he kept his coat on and zipped up the rest of the night because he didn't want anyone to see his shirt! I have NO IDEA where he got the mentality that he couldn't wear pink! We have never applied any gender-specific rules in this house, I'm pretty sad about it! (Um... (cough) Ge.)


-Yes, he opened presents in his underwear. His clothes were in the wash bc he also threw up, only his wasn't illness, his was to show that he didn't want to eat dinner. He does that.-

Layla had asked Santa for an iCarly iPod (MP3 player), so when she opened it from Ba and Ge, instead of being as excited as we all hoped she'd be... she was confused. She was stressing out about Santa also bringing her one (because that's who she asked for it, not Ba and Ge) and leaving her with two. What a conundrum. We tried to give her a satisfactory answer, but she seemed much less interested once she realized all her favorite songs were already downloaded for her :)



We did manage to watch Christmas Vacation (The real Christmas miracle! after I found it when Dad thought it had been missing for months) 1 and 1 1/2 times, sickness and all.

Dec 22nd

This year we opened gifts with Nathan's parents early, on the same night we did his birthday dinner with the family. We had to open early just incase Santa brought our kids something(s) that go with the gifts Nonie and Pap were giving them.



My kids were SO sweetly surprised by their gifts. They were precious. They were obviously excited about everything they got, but this night they lit up exactly the way you imagine them to- so much that I teared up watching them!

Layla opened her American Girl doll! She had the option of picking out one that looked like her, but she had wanted Julie (who, ironically, looks just like her lol). She was sqealing with delight.




Brynn also got American Girl- Bitty Baby twins! She was adorable... "It's Cale and Me!" She actually ended up naming them after her cousins, Isaac and Olivia. But for days she has carried them around asking, "Do you want to see my black babies?" haha.(BTW- she has about five other "black babies", I guess she just never noticed.)



Cale got a Thomas the Train track! But he loooooves his Batman car. It crashes! lol.
And I'll be honest, I was fine with them getting snuggies, but it wasn't anything I was excited about. However, they LOVE them. They have used them every day since and they are already coming in handy!




And we all got a Wii!! Nathan and I stayed up until midnight playing that night and I have used it every day since! ha. I do share, though :)