Christmas!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We've had so much fun that I haven't had time to sit down and write about our wonderful holiday. I feel like we didn't do quite as much pre-Christmas fun as usual this year - throw in the mid-month trip to Jamaica and then the fact that 3 girls were in school until the 22nd the month flew by. Anyways we really kicked off Christmas celebration the Wed before Christmas when we had Dad and Nat over for dinner. We had a nice dinner (thanks Nat!) and then the kids opened their gifts. They were the first gifts the kids had gotten this year and wow..were they surprised, excited and spoiled! The next day we did our annual gingerbread houses. And let me add that every year I think this is a great idea but it never quite happens as great as I think/remember. Oh well...it's tradition. That night we met up with our good friends the Dickey's to go to the Lights on the Neuse. This is the 3rd year in a row we've gone with them to see a lights spectacular and so now it's become tradition. The kids loved it despite the frigid temperatures! Friday, Christmas Eve, Paul was off of work for the first time in perhaps our entire marriage! It was so nice to have him around. We have a tradition that the kids open 1 gift on Christmas Eve - always new pajamas and the kids were excited to open their gifts right after breakfast this year! The older girls are on to the tradition now and aren't surprised by the jammies but it's still fun. We delivered a gift to Paul's dad and enjoyed our only peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Chickfila this holiday season! I cooked all day and we went to church for the Christmas Eve service in the late afternoon. That evening we welcomed Paul's family - his mom, her husband and his sister and friend over for dinner and gifts. Nana completely spoiled the children! The gift pile was neverending! The kids were beyond excited about all their fun new things. They made their Santa cookie plate and sprinkled reindeer food outside and finally went to bed with great anticipation!

Christmas morning the kids woke up about 7am which was later than I expected. We snuggled in the bed for about 45 minutes when they just couldn't take it anymore. We crept downstairs and indeed Santa had come! The kids were so excited! Santa was VERY good to us this year - including bringing me a new laptop!! We opened our stockings and played with our Santa gifts then Daddy made a big breakfast for us. After breakfast we opened the rest of our gifts! My family started arriving around 12:30...my aunt and 2 cousins came from Winston Salem and my mom and her husband came up from the beach. We enjoyed time together and a nice dinner and of course more gifts! More spoiling! The kids were super excited about everything they got! We'd been watching the weather all day in anticipation of the snow storm and with the impending winter weather my aunt decided to head home in the early evening. Smart move since we got about 6 or 7 inches of snow that night! My poor mom lost power at the hotel they were staying at (luckily it was right down the street) so they came to our house on Sunday and stayed until Monday afternoon when they headed back to the beach with Lily!

It's been a nice, relaxing week this week - cleaning and reorganizing, sleeping in....nice vacation so far!! Lily's having a GREAT time at Camp Gagi - I'm afraid she's not going to want to come home!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!