Christmas 2011

Christmas had come, and it was ready and waiting for two bright eyed little children.

The one on the left here awakened at 5:30, ready to go. Thankfully Papaw got him to go back to sleep, but by 7:30 we couldn't hold them off any longer!!
As tradition in my family continues, the kids are not allowed to go see anything until the adults say so. So, they were upstairs chanting every few seconds, "can we go down yet??"
And finally, the day that the whole kid year revolves around had arrived.
Ripping and tearing....
Excitement...
And joy!
And within a matter of what seemed like moments, it was over. Or so I thought! Paul told me, I had forgot a present over there, and I said, "no I didn't, that was all of them" "no, there's one more" "no Paul, that was it!" "Gretchen, there's ONE more!" Ohhhhhh, sometimes I'm slow like that. So, I went and looked and found a small box on the tree, and it was for ME!!! Paul, completely surprised me with a beautiful ring!!!!

Lovely picture of me, huh?
After rampage of the gifts, it was fun to watch the play.
Happy Napper that she had been asking for months for was a big hit! Yea!
And check out Neena here, taking no prisoners playing Hungry, Hungry Hippo!
The rest of the family was to be there for lunch and then gifts after that. Jo, and I had to take a moment of course.
And you KNOW, that we had to have this picture right here!!!
After lunch, we sang to Jesus for his birthday. :)
Then it was time for even MORE gifts.
More rampage...
And more fun, watching everyone be excited for their gifts!
And several wardrobe shows...

And sappy ol' me, just has to say how lovely a day it was. I love my family and love seeing them all together.
And I pray that the children look back one day with fond memories of how much we loved them, and loved being together.
It was a fantabulous Christmas!!!

HOWEVER, I still had one more very important date I needed to attend to.

McDonald's and my best friend, cause that's how we roll.
We drank diet coke's, exchanged gifts and laughed! I made her this hilarious calender, that she got a big kick out of. :)))
And check out what she made me!!! I LOVE IT!!!!
Never seems we have enough time, but I will take every bit I can get! Love this girl!
And that in a nutshell was our Christmas Day of 2011. But Christmas is not over yet! More posts to come....:)

Christmas Eve, 2011

Let me go ahead, and sound like an old person, NOW. How can Christmas and another year be over?? I say this, every.single.year. But, I always feel the same way, every.single.year. I've decided I'm just to darn sentimental. The end of another year always makes me sad, but from here on out, I will be happy about it. Okay? Hold me to it....

We started our Christmas Eve, with our annual breakfast. Okay, this was only the second one, but I will still refer to it as annual. This time the Reid's decided they were to good for us, and bailed out. So the Bush's and Lee's represented. How cute does Cameron look sitting there on the end, alone? Ha!

Steve had to get in the picture too. :)
Most of our Christmas Eve, was just hanging out at my moms all day. In the evening, the family got together for our meal, and to exchange gifts with Christopher and Jaclyn. I forced the kids to dress up for me and take pictures.
I couldn't stop them from taking breaks to peek at the gifts though. Oh, what fun!
My mom, had a wonderful meal for us, and we enjoyed it in the beautiful candlelight.

And you know that the Robinson clan, HAD to get the 'round the table picture!
Christopher had to work on Christmas day, how dumb is that?! So, we had our gifts with them after dinner. Aren't they cute?!
And in between gifts and fun, I took umpteen pictures. Cause that's what I do people. Please note, the man in the background throwing deuces.
Might be just a little too close...
Better.
My three nephews, and beautiful sister.
We had such a wonderful Christmas Eve.
The kids were CLIMBING the walls, and just being general wild, excited monkeys.
And though I thought of maybe using a tranquilizer gun on them, they finally fell fast asleep.
And it's a good thing they did, because this was what awaited them when they would wake up.

Aint no party, like an office party

On Friday we were going to head up to Indiana for all of our Christmas festivities, but before we left the kids and I headed to Paul's office party. Paul decided the DAY before the party, that it would be an ugly sweater party. Nothing like a last minute decision for something! I was prepared, because I still had my award winning ugly sweater hanging in my closet.

Of course, I would never go intentionally go buy ugly sweaters for these two! So, they just showed up cute.

However, Paul had gotten rid of his previous white sweater, but kept the lovely dickie. Ha! So, he went on Thursday and found his self a lovely white cable knit. Too funny. And listen to this! He had scheduled for a turkey/ham platter to be delivered for the meal. Well, they called him 10 minutes AFTER it was to be delivered and said that their truck had broken down, and he would have to come pick it up. He got there, and it was packed! Had to wait in line for 30 minutes. In that time, he saw people getting out their phones taking pictures of him! HA! You know people were probably uploading pics of him to facebook...."check out this dork!"
Sharky brought his Wii from home, and we had some heavy competition going on. And the guys wearing those awesome sweaters, were breaking out in a sweat.
And Pierce here, would take on anyone there! Too cute!
I didn't take that many pics at the party, and once we got home, and I had to re document this lovely, lovely thing I wore.
Hanging balls on a sweater. Now that is classic.

"This is the best night"

Last night, Pierce and I went out to do a little shopping for his sister. He wanted to get her a gift, seriously he has been ALL about gift giving this year!!!! Anyways, so just the two of us ventured out, and it was SUCH a fun time. He and I do not get nearly enough one on one time together, and I miss it.

He must have said to me 5 times last night, "this is the best night momma."

And you know, I might have to agree with him. We laughed, sang, skipped like buffoons, and just enjoyed each other.
He brings his own money everywhere these days, so he can give to the Salvation Army bell ringers. Love that!
And we ended the night with a special treat all of his own. I don't ever want to forget our special night together.
This will probably be last post for a while. I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. My heart is heavy for some, and I'm praying. I love all my bloggy people. :)))))