Christmas!

We had a very fun Christmas! The kids and Justin were 100% completely surprised when Granny and Papa arrived from Idaho on Tuesday the 23rd. I had known they were coming for about a month and it was so hard not to share my little secret! They were able to set up an appointment at Justin's clinic. He thought he had a new patient and was bewildered to see a lady on the exam table that looked an awful lot like his mom! Then they showed up at our house. Care Bear answered the door and stopped dead in her tracks after she opened the door. She turned around and said "Grandma is at our house!" with a look of absolute confusion on her face. Then mass mayhem broke out and the poor satellite guy at our house couldn't finish installing our program fast enough. It was so fun!

Leading up to Christmas, our family did the 12 Days of Christmas for an elderly couple on our street. It was one of the highlights of the season. The kids had so much fun trying to sneak up to their door without getting caught. The couple looked like they were having as much as we were. We could see them watching for us and peaking out their window to try to catch us. On Christmas Eve we took them a plate of goodies like we had done for all the neighbors to try to fool them but they knew it had been us and gave us all the fixings for ice-cream sundaes. We still delivered our final gift later that night, but this time when they yelled thank you, we said you are welcome back and that made them laugh. Here is the list of what we gave.

Day 1 - One bag of gourmet popcorn
Day 2- Two loaves of zucchini bread
Day 3 - Three oranges
Day 4 - Four gift wrapping supplies
Day 5 - Five things for hot cocoa
Day 6 - Six ornaments
Day 7 - Seven sugar cookies
Day 8 - eight chocolate candies
Day 9 - sparkly snowflakes
Day 10 - Ten candy canes
Day 11 - Eleven chocolate chip cookies
Day 12 - Twelve Ferrero Rouchet candies

On Christmas Eve, we woke up to a white world that only lasted for a couple hours before changing to rain. So I kind of got my white Christmas but not like most of you! We had our traditional green pancakes for breakfast and shared them with our friends from across the street. We made cookies and candies all day and fixed a delicious Prime Rib dinner thanks to Justin's mom. I am now a Prime Rib convert! It helped that the meat wasn't red like you usually see. La-La couldn't get enough. After dinner Santa Clause made a short appearance and brought each of the kids a small gift. Jaco had seen on the news the Santa Tracker and then when he arrived in person at our house he was starting to believe again. He asked me if I had lied to him about Santa not being real. It was pretty funny. I just told him Santa is what you believe him to be. We let the kids open their new P.J.'s from G&G Finch and then their cousin exchange gift and we read from Luke chapter 2 after watching a short movie about Jesus' birth. After leaving Santa and the reindeer their treats it was bedtime which went surprisingly well! The girls went right to sleep and Jaco only came out once or twice. But then he woke up at 12:30 and tried to convince dad that it was morning time. No such luck! La-La woke up at 5:15 but I was able to keep her in bed until 6:30 and then I let her loose to wake everyone else up.



It was fun watching everyone open all their gifts and opening my own stash too! Care Bear got a Barbie Jeep from Santa, La-La got a guitar and Jaco got a DS Lite. Then they got other gifts like games, dolls, books, and puzzles and Jaco got a lifetime supply of Bakugan. Justin got a huge plasma TV (too big if you ask me!) and I got a new watch. Justin also got Guitar Hero from his mom and now I am questioning myself for telling her to get him the game! All I hear is screaming electric guitars! I got a kitchen mixer and I am so excited about it! I also got a bunch of jewelry and some other kitchen gadgets. For Christmas dinner we ate an $80 turkey that Justin received as a gift. It was good but not much better than the $5 one we had for Thanksgiving! We had a very good day and I loved staying in my jammies until 4 in the afternoon. I love Christmas in my own home!


Thanks again to Granny & Papa for braving the horrible roads to come spend Christmas with us. We had so much fun with you! It was a Christmas we will never forget.