Pixiemom

Christmas morning wasn’t quite as early as I expected. James and Amie were probably up around 7 am. Jeremy and I heard them playing in the dining room around 7:30 am, but they were being quiet and waiting for the other kids to wake up. By 8 am, Christine was awake and I had them put on Christmas music and see if the little kids were awake yet. They went up yelling, “Wake up, let’s see what’s in our stockings!” Noelle didn’t understand that stockings=presents so she didn’t want to get up at first until we asked if she wanted to open presents. After stockings, we had breakfast of monkey bread for everyone except James (because of his milk allergy) and he had crescent rolls which I’d put butter and cinnimon sugar on before rolling up. Directly after that, we unwrapped the presents which the church had given us and the ones the children got at the church’s shopping spree. We took a bit of a break after that to clear out the living room a bit, all those boxes and wrapping paper, and let Jeremy put the ham in the roaster to cook. The last presents we unwrapped were the ones we had gotten everyone (one present a piece, matching skirts for the girls and me, cowboy shirts for James and Jeremy) and the presents from my parents. I started boiling the sweet potatoes after that and we all got dressed and ready to go to Jeremy’s parents’ house. We wore the new skirts and the boys wore their new shirts. It was fun. We put the sweet potatoes, ham, pumpkin pies, and zebra bites into the van as well as children, of couse, and headed on down there. I finished up the sweet potatoes there and we finished fixing the food that Jeremy’s mom had started and then we ate. Yummy! I kept my eating down and didn’t stuff myself. The rest of the day was spent talking and watching the kids play. The guys (Jeremy, his brothers, and his dad) all went out to the room behind the garage and worked on putting the floor into Andrew’s room. They got that done and put up the closet pole. It is starting to look really good. He can start moving furniture in now. They still have a bamboo chair railing to put up around the room and a few other things, but it is almost done.

We didn’t get home until around 9:30 pm and had some very fussy children.

Yesterday, I spent doing a lot of cleaning in this house. I sure was glad it was trash day because I was afraid of it getting pulled apart by feral cats looking for food and then having a ton of wrapping to pick up again.  I also took a nap in the afternoon. The younger kids were very fussy all day because of the long day beforehand and Noelle went to bed a bit earlier than normal.

There you go, you are now caught up on our life.

This is the first time I’ve been able to get online and actually check my e-mail and read other people’s blogs since Friday. I hopped on long enough on Sunday to post my Merry Christmas post and that was it.

Saturday was baking day and I made four pumpkin pies and many, many zebra bites. I also made little smokies. Some were as pigs-in-a-blanket with crescent rolls and others were cooked in bbq sauce. All were very yummy.

On Sunday, we woke up an hour later than we usually do on Sundays because there was no Sunday school. I dressed the children nice, but not as dressy as I usually have them. Service was only an hour, from 10-11 am. Afterwards, we went with Jeremy’s family to our favorite restaurant, a Chinese buffet place, for lunch. Since we got out of church an hour early, the restaurant wasn’t crowded yet and we were seated quickly. It was so nice. In the afternoon, we went to his parents’ house to open presents. We went home for dinner. After dinner, a friend came over and we had a small candlelight service of our own. I think Jeremy’s parents really would have liked it if we had been able to stay over there and do it there. I think in the future, it would be nice to do that too. I know the kids would still be open during the discussion with them as well. We read the Christmas story, starting with Gabriel’s visit to Mary and ending with the Wise Men, then we had a discussion with the kids and asked questions. Even Noelle answered a question or two. After that, we sang Christmas carols. All the kids picked out one. Noelle wanted “Jesus Loves Me” (not really a Christmas carol, but a great song about Jesus, so we sang it.) AnnaBeth picked “Away in a Manger”. Christine decided on “Silent Night”. Amie chose “Joy to the World” and James settled on “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.” We sang more carols, but it was nice that the kids are learning all these songs and wanting to sing them. Of course, we can’t have carols without singing, “The First Noel”. It is a special song to us. I’ll talk more about that later in another post.

Anyway, that was our Christmas Eve. I’ll talk about Christmas later. I really should be getting in bed now.

Crystal has some cute pictures up, one of her daughter and niece which, as she put it, oozed with cute. In that manner, I decided to put the following picture up for your enjoyment.

A Prince and Six Princesses, Thanksgiving 2006

As always, click pic to see larger version.

I can’t believe my itty bitty baby is now a 3 year old.

She was just a tiny 3 lb 14 oz baby, with wires and an IV going all over her.  She was born at 6:30 pm, but I didn’t get to see her until 10:30 pm.  I was so wornout and worried about my little girl.

Now she is a beautiful little 3 yr old princess. She is Momma’s little girl. I’m so blessed by her.

Poor Girl is sick today with a cold. She is still happy about it being her birthday and can’t wait to eat chocolate cake and unwrap the presents on the table.