Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas wrap-up

we had a wonderful Christmas and i hope you did too! it was totally different than Christmases of the past, but i guess that's what happens when you have kids in the house. :)

i had Christmas eve day off while ryan worked a half day, so it was fun to be home with the boys for awhile by myself. i got the house cleaned up and in shape for guests, and had some time to do some last minute present wrapping for family members. later that day, we all got cleaned up and headed to Christmas eve church service with my parents, sister and family, and grandparents who were visiting from tennessee. since it was a special service, their church had no childcare so little P came to church with us. he did great in the service and at one point grunted/growled/screamed along with one of the carols we were singing. it was pretty cute and i think everyone around us was impressed with his musical prowess :)

after church, we headed over to ryan's stepdad's family Christmas party. this is by far one of the highlights of the Christmas season for us as we love getting to spend time with all the relatives and catching up. plus, there are a lot of other "kids" our age, most of whom are fellow UK grads so we have plenty to talk about! (*can anyone say, 14-0 baby?!? go cats!) here's this year's annual Christmas eve family picture:

we brought a pack-n-play for P, so we put him to sleep and stayed at the party until about 11:00 p.m., which is a super late night for us old folks!

after the party, we headed home and for the first time ever, ryan and i were up late that night helping "santa" get the rest of the boys' gifts wrapped. (*side bar - "santa" did not wrap in my house growing up, but ryan insisted that "santa" wrap for our children because he always did for him. to that i say - next year, "santa", you're on your own. if you want to wrap, go right ahead but i need my beauty sleep!!) we finally got into bed around 1:00 a.m., with all presents wrapped neatly under the tree.


the next morning, we got got P up first, changed his diaper and got him dressed for the day. then we went in and woke up R, so we could all go down as a family to see whether or not "santa" had come. i think R may be a little too old though to really appreciate ryan and i excitedly shaking him and saying, "santa came! santa came!" over and over again first thing in the morning.


the boys opened their gifts from "santa" and we let R open his big gift from us...the sony PSP. he was super excited about it! we enjoyed some time together as a family around the christmas tree for awhile but then had to pack up for the rest of the day's activities. we shuttled off to my parent's house for our annual christmas breakfasts (mmmm...i can smell the biscuits and gravy now!) and gift giving. unfortunately, i think P was overwhelmed with all the activity of the morning because he would not take a nap to save his life! instead, he grumpily joined us for all the morning's festivities.

we exchanged gifts with each other and the boys rushed outside to try out one of R's gifts...the rip stik:

(*note: this is not an actual photo of anyone in our family. their rip stik skills are not this advanced. that is all.)

after almost breaking their necks, the boys came back inside and somehow we began a large family game of rock band. i wish i could share the photos, but i think i would die of embarrassment! we rocked out for a really, REALLY long time but sadly, we had to head out and get on to our next christmas destination.

we headed back to our house to celebrate christmas with ryan's parents. for the first time ever, they joined us at our house and we had our traditional christmas brunch meal. *i don't think i've ever eaten that many orange sweet rolls in one sitting!* after brunch, we exchanged gifts with them and then spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies and just lounging around. it was fun to have them over and have nowhere to rush off to next so that we could just enjoy each other's company for awhile.

all and all, it was a busy christmas, but the best one i can remember!! seeing how welcoming both our families were of the boys, seeing R's excitement over gifts, and just getting some time to hang out with our families was more than i could have ever asked for!

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