The Christmas Post

Richie's brothers and dad were kind enough to help Richie finish our storage room shelves before Christmas! After they put the finishing touches on it, Richie and I put a movie on for the kids and went and organized all of our food storage just the way we're been planning/dreaming since we moved in. It was definitely an early Christmas for us and we are so happy with the results! Of course there are things we'd like to add or change or improve, but all of that will come in time. For the next long while, we're going to be enjoying our new storage room!

We took the kids to see Santa at the grocery store. Gwen wanted nothing to do with them. She was silently stubborn and I didn't want to fight with her. Miles was beyond excited all the way to the store, and as soon as we got there he was completely star struck. He couldn't even say a word, he just smiled sheepishly and nodded.

I don't know where he got it from, but Miles has been concerned all month about the fact that we didn't have a star on the top of our tree. I didn't want to go buy one, so I told him he could make one for it. He did it almost all by himself, and he was so proud to put it on the top.

Christmas Eve was a rush to finish homemade gifts and making sure everything was ready. We spent the snowy evening with some of the Garner fam and then came home to start our very first Christmas by ourselves, in our new home. We managed to squeeze in some cookie making so we had some to leave for Santa. Good thing our fireplace is just a gaping hole at this point. It makes it real easy for Santa to get in and out. :) The kids got their new Christmas pjs and keepsake book, we read the Christmas story and put the kids to bed. Growing up in my family, it was tradition for all the siblings to sleep in the same room on Christmas Eve, so we thought we'd try it out this year with Miles and Gwen. They were both very excited and surprisingly well behaved, however about 30 minutes later Gwen was banging on the door trying to get out. She was so relieved when I put her back in her crib.

This was my first time really stressing out over Christmas morning. I stayed up till 4 trying to make sure everything was ready and trying to figure out new ways to never do it like this again! I enjoyed parts of staying up till the wee hours, but for the most part, I was wishing I was snug in my bed. So by Christmas morning I was wiped out, Richie had been sick most of the night, and the kids wouldn't conform to my idea of tradition. How dare they want to look at presents before breakfast!! :) They were so excited to see what Santa brought. After they rooted through the loot upstairs, they could hardly believe there was more downstairs. And then they saw this beauty:

Santa has been working on this since the summer. He was SO please with how it turned out, and the kids are loving it! Success!!


After the Garners came over to see what Santa brought, we packed up and headed to St. George to spend some time with the Crosbys. We made it just in time for Christmas Day Dinner and the rest of the presents. We stayed in SG until Saturday and had such a relaxing time, it was perfect. There weren't any major plans, so there was lots of time just to chill and hang out. We actually came home well rested after a vacation! Crazy! Despite getting sick and passing it on to our family. It was actually really nice to get sick while I was "at home" and have my mommy take care of me again.