PHEW....We finally have Christmas behind us.

The 24th was a wildly busy day. The older two babysat while dh and I ran and did our final gift and grocery shopping. We then spent the evening as a family with a fondue dinner followed by making/decorating a gingerbread house (a tradition that I have Kelly to thank for!) as well as our traditional ornament making. We then decorated stockings with glue, glitter and fabric paint and finished wrapping gifts.








Then Andrew and I went to the 11pm service at church while the others all got settled into bed. Church was a lot of fun. The sermon was really one of the best I've heard in a long time. Andrew was so tired though that he nearly fell asleep. We went up for communion and he took the bread and his little cup of wine...and kept walking, oblivious to the woman trying to get the little cup back. He walked straight OUT of the church and into the annex with the untouched bread and wine still in his hands. I decided it was time to go home and we left early.

When we got home at 12.30am, all of the kid were still awake and excited. I shuttled them into bed in Thomas' office and hid out with the videocamera (as directed by them!) to possibly catch Santa coming in to our home.

Imagine everyone's surprise when Santa really did show up!



For the Video of his visit to our home, please click here...though there is some commotion at the end with the kids, Aidan's little fake Santa number is priceless!:


Click Here

We were all absolutely exhausted once Santa had made his way to North Dakota and we managed to all sleep in until about 9.30am. This is a new record for this house on Christmas morning.

After everyone got dressed, we made it downstairs and the present ripping open fiesta began! Alex, Amanda, Aidan and Zoe were wowed by their gifts....









Andrew...not so much..which really bummed me out. I put a lot of thought into his gift...and I thought this would be one of those "best Christmas' ever" for him..instead, the reception was only luke warm. He has a Wii, gamecube and a cherished Nintendo 64 which he likes to call an antique. He is really into the history of videogaming and so...I bought him an original Atari 2600. Santa brought him an original 2600 case in the original box and several awesome Atari games like pacman, Adventure, and Frogger (in the original box with the original instruction sheet).

I thought I'd be high-fiving myself all day about how awesome I am to have thought of this gift. Andrew just wasn't wowed by it all and so I felt deflated. He likes it...even a lot...but says he doesn't want to play it because it's a collectors item and therefore...felt a little left out because he didn't have anything cool to play with.

While I prepared our roast, german Spaetzle, brussel sprouts and apple/cherry cobbler, the kids cried, fought and basically drove me crazy. The rest of our Christmas was courtesy of Bailey's Irish Cream :> . At one point, Andrew walked by Alex and actually hit him in the face...not meaning to hurt him, but...I suppose a gesture of...brotherly...love? Alex carried on for 2 hour s about not being able to open his jaw, eat, or move his mouth...which sent dh into orbit. I had this *feeling* that he was exaggerating, but any mention of that caused a ripple through the house that I was "defending" Andrew...who lost his Wii over the incident.

It all came to head over dinner when Alex cried because he couldn't eat, Zoe cried because she was exhausted, and Aidan cried because...well...when Andrew sat down next to him, he accidentally bonked him in the eye. Thomas got angry, Andrew ran downstairs to his room..and...I captured it on film because...well...this is the real world, not a cheesy Hallmark card.






Alls well that ends well, and eventually, we all made it to the dinner table and managed to move past the bonks and the slaps and our general holiday moodiness. Amazingly, once I mentioned that perhaps we should go to the ER and see if Alex needed his jaw sewn shut :> (Oh yes, I'm evil) he was able to talk and eat without a problem. I KNEW it!



The rest of the evening was relaxing again and we all enjoyed our new gifts and even spent time in the kitchen rockin out to Jordan Sparks "Tattoo".

Thomas wasn't really crazy about his big gift either...then he figured out what it could do (store 150 CDs or DVDs and organize them electronically) and he got excited. He spent an hour uploading CDs and information through the computer to this thing only to have it....break down and simply quit functioning altogether. He spent a good chunk of time writing a bad review on Amazon...and...I finished off the Baileys!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Kris[/quote]