Merry Christmas!

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
–Andy Rooney

It was the week before Christmas, and all through the house, children were begging to go to downtown Grapevine, also known as the Christmas Capital of Texas™, and take a lot of posed pictures by cardboard cutouts.  And that’s exactly what we did.

And then it was Christmas eve.  Our tradition, before Christmas Eve dinner, is to open a bag with books, pajamas, and an ornament.  After dinner, the kids dress up in their pajamas and do their best to get to bed.  Santa visits while the kids are asleep and then the day the kids have been waiting on finally arrives.

Christmas came as it has every year.  With three children conspiring in the hallway, not quietly by the way, to run in and wake up Mommy and Daddy by jumping on the bed.  We still pretended to be asleep to give them the chance to wake us up, and soon enough there were three kids bouncing up and down on our bed.  The rest of the story can be told in pictures but in summary I’d say the kids had a good first Christmas.

Christmas number 2 was at Nina and Papa’s house.  The kids had a lot of fun opening more presents, playing with their cousins, and enjoying a Christmas breakfast prepared by PePa and Daddy.  After all the excitement was over, the kids played until we dragged them out of the house for the next stop on the Christmas journey.

The final stop on the Christmas tour was at Grandma and Grandpa’s.  We had dinner, opened more presents, visited with family, and had a great time.  The kids were puckered out after all the excitement of the day and it would be nice to say it was easy to get them to go to sleep.

Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks kids for an incredible 2019.  Mommy and Daddy can’t think of a better way to round out the decade than spending the week with you crazy kiddos.

A week of Christmas parties…

Isla:  "Mommy?"
Mommy:  "What do you need Isla?"
Isla:  "Nothing."

No matter your political leanings, the impeachment of a President is a big deal and worth paying attention to.  We also wanted to use the proceedings as an educational moment for the kids.  I don’t know how much they understood of what was going on, but the older two seemed to get the importance of it and were interested in watching the votes come in.

There were several Christmas parties at the school this week and Mommy was very excited to be able to help out.  Ashlyn wasn’t as interested in having Mommy around since she’s older now, but James was happy with it.  They played games, listened to stories, ate some lunch, followed by dessert. 

Because parties at school weren’t enough, we also had one at our house with a group of friends.  This included a gift exchange and lots of running around.  It ended up being the longest the kids have ever stayed up, but they did well with it and it was fun to watch all the kids play so well together.

When not playing games with their friends, we’re trying to find more games the kids can play together.  Recently we found a new card game that James and Ashlyn enjoy playing.  Now the kitchen table is covered in cards, but that’s the price you pay for kids having fun.