Christmas 2009!

I must say that Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday and time of year. I love the Christmas music, decorations, festivities, baking, gift giving and excitement that Christmas time brings! This year I was just a little nervous about whether the kids would enjoy this very special day with it only being the four of us. Their whole lives all they have known was something near chaos (in a good way) on Christmas day. I worried about whether they would like their gifts from Santa, whether they would think the house was too quiet, whether they would get bored with just mom and dad, whether everyone would enjoy the food, and so on. I know, really, life must not be too bad if these are my stressors! I worried in vain. This Christmas may have just been one of the very best days of my life- ever! We had such a wonderful day.

Brent and I pretended to sleep as we heard Blaine wake up. He was the first one to officially get up Christmas morning. He went downstairs to check and see if Santa had come. He came racing into our room talking faster than I have ever heard him talk. He was so excited! He told us that Santa had come, but that there was a slight problem. Santa had rearranged the family room to make room for the gifts. He insisted that we come see what Santa had done. Brent and I threw on our robes (first time ever in our married life opening gifts in pjs) and headed down stairs. The feeling I felt when seeing the kids excitement was priceless! Santa had wrapped seven gifts for Blaine and Aislin, but didn't put name tags on the gifts. Luckily they both guessed right. Santa's elves worked for hours, late into the night, to put together a combo game table. Santa must have known that we were trying to get a game room started in the basement.

After opening their gifts we convinced the kids to eat some breakfast. Then Blaine got busy assembling all of his new Lego sets. He is really getting quite adept at putting the complicated sets together with no adult assistance. Aislin waited patiently for her gifts to be assembled. Her new tent, vanity and twin stroller needed adult help to be put together. She was patient while we put everything together though. The morning was just perfect. We had music playing in the background, all kinds of food baking away, and Blaine and Aislin had our full attention. After some playing the kids helped me decorate some cupcakes as I started prepping for lunch.

By the way, the dessert spread is where Aislin spent the majority of her day (sneaking M&M's!)

Tres, Tina and Olivia were coming over for lunch and bring a yummy ham. However, at lunch time Tina called to say that she was dropping Olivia while she ran out to the pharmacy. Tres had just had sinus surgery earlier in the week. She said he had spent the night in pain with his sinuses. So Christmas lunch was not carried out as planned. Blaine was starving so he went ahead and ate solo, although Brent and I did sit with him. Then Tina came back by to grab a bite to eat and then take Olivia and a plate of food home to the sick patient. All in all though, it was a great day. I already look forward to next year.

Blaine eating his Christmas dinner:

The girls eating at Aislin's little table:

The best shot I could get of the three kids, doesn't Blaine look thrilled?

Aislin's turn taking pictures :)

By the end of the day everyone was ready to crash- except for me. I knew that after Christmas meant for me, the beginning of packing everyone and everything up for Florida. Brent and Aislin took a little rest on the couch to watch Aislin's current favorite movie Enchanted.

Blaine continued on with Legos while I began laundry and packing up for our trip.

After Brent's rest he helped me undecorate the tree and put everything away. While we were headed to Florida for a few days we had our contractor coming to make some improvements to the house. We figured it was much easier for them to work with us out of the way. I will make a separate post with all the housing projects (we currently have 106 according to Brent's excel list!).