Christmas Week

Lance took the week of Christmas off of work. He was so excited to get to take Sam to the Marvel Live show at Phillips Arena. They went to the Monday morning show while Reese, Hayes and I ran some last minute Christmas errands.

Lance said that they both really enjoyed the show and I know Sam ate up that special time with Daddy!

We were supposed to have Christmas with Lance’s family on Tuesday but his nephew ended up with the flu so we had to postpone. We did meet his parents for lunch though at our favorite burger place. Other than that Lance has some work stuff to take care of and I made cookies and zucchini bread for our neighbors.

Wednesday was a packed busy day…on purpose. We went to our friends house for lunch that we had cancelled on the Friday before. The kids always play so well together and we rarely see them when we are there. They had these cute little hats waiting on us when we arrived.

After lunch we headed straight to see Big Hero 6. We got there a couple of minutes late but it was perfect that we missed all of the previews. The movie ended just in time for us to head to the 5:00 Christmas eve service at church. I love going to the later service so that when we come out it is dark and we are ready to settle in for the night. We grabbed a pizza on our way home and headed straight in to our basement to watch “The Polar Express”. After the movie was over we ran upstairs to set out our cookies and milk for Santa, touch our elf (since Santa picks him up on Christmas there is no need for him to still have his magic), contact the North Pole on our communicator one more time, and settle in to bed. Hayes cracked us up when he snatched up one of Santa’s cookies to eat for himself.

It took Sam a while to go to sleep. For days he had been climbing in our bed in the morning and asking how many more days til Santa came. He couldn’t contain his excitement that evening. Around 11:30 Reese woke up and asked if Santa had come yet. Since I was still up I told her I hadn’t seen him yet. At 3:30, Sam climbed in to our bed and said he looked and Santa hadn’t come yet. Turns out Santa had come but pushed the sofa back so that he could hide the kids presents under the catwalk so they couldn’t look over and see. We let Sam sleep the rest of the night in our bed and then Reese came in around 6:30. She wasn’t sure if Santa had come yet or not but neither one of them went back to sleep. We kept them in our room until 7:00 when we woke Hayes up and headed down stairs.

Santa saw Hayes play with this doggy at Target one day and decided to get it for him. It was his absolute favorite present and he played with it all morning.

Sam’s favorite present was his Power Ranger Super Megazord he had been asking for.

Reese was happy to get more bands for her Rainbow Loom.

Part of the aftermath…

After presents were opened and hugs of thanks were given, we told the kids we had one more present for them. They put shoes and jackets on and weren’t quite sure why. We didn’t tell them anything, we just walked outside and they saw their new trampoline. This was the reason we had to stay gone all day on Christmas eve. The man who finished my parents basement and his wife set up the trampoline for us during the afternoon so that it was there on Christmas morning for our kids. We were so grateful for them doing that for us!

They were very excited to get it!! They have played on it every day that hasn’t rained.

Around noon we headed out to my parents house to celebrate Christmas with them, my grandma, and Aunt Becky and Uncle Tommy. Not one.single.picture was taken. We had a fun day there though and came home with more fabulous gifts.

Friday morning I ran to Target to get diapers because we only had one left and I came home with tons of discounted Christmas décor. As the day went on I began to feel bad and a whole week after everyone else (and a little cocky that I had beat it) I ended up with the stomach bug. Our house looks like a tornado went through it because I was down for days and nothing had been cleaned up from Christmas! Ugh! I am back in the land of the living now and hoping to have the house organized by the new year!