Christmas 2017

Christmas has come and gone and I never quite understand how it goes by so fast. We had been anticipating the season for weeks and the kids were so excited when it finally rolled around. The 23rd was the official kick-off to our Christmas weekend. Lance had to work that day so the kids and I ran some final errands and got the boys hair cut. That night our church was having a Christmas Eve (eve) service so we attended the 5:00 service. After the service, we headed to MPC to eat dinner.

It was packed and this is how we all felt while we waited for our food...

After dinner, we drove around and looked at a few lights and then decided to head back home...

...to watch Home Alone. Hayes made it through the first few minutes and he was out.

The 24th, the kids woke up excited because it was going to be the first of Christmas celebrations. We headed to Lance's sister's house around noon and spent the afternoon with his family.

Cousins...not sure what that blur is on the side of these pictures.

Silly pose...that apparently only my kids wanted to do...

 Lance's mom gave the kids all of their gifts in these big stockings. Hayes cracks me up!

After celebrating Christmas with them, they were off to their church service and we headed home. But first, it has become tradition for us to go to a movie on Christmas Eve. We started this several years ago and the kids look forward to it each year! This year we saw Sing! After the movie we headed home to wrap the night up and head to bed. This was the first year that I wrapped gifts ahead of time and I have to say it was amazing!! That evening was much more relaxed than years past.

We told the kids not to get up before 6:00 but apparently Reese and Sam were in cahoots. Sam always wakes up early so Reese told him to wake her up as soon as he woke up. The two of them came in to our room at 5:00. I wanted to be grumpy with them but I knew they were excited. We decided they had to just hang out in our room until 6:00. However, Hayes came walking in my room at 5:40 and it was all over after that. Lance headed down stairs to get all the lights turned on while I read them the story of Jesus' birth (not that they were really listening to me).

Finally we let them loose and the fun got to start.

They had fun and were excited about all of their gifts. And our house looked like a bomb went off in it.

We had breakfast and every one checked out all of their gifts.

We had planned to stay in our pajamas for the day while we were at my parents house so there was no getting ready involved. We left for my parents house around 11:00 and got there right around noon. The kids played and goofed off with my dad while we waited for Becca and Tommy to arrive.

Once they were there, the kids were ready for more presents. They were super excited about everything once again.

We went to Waffle House for a late lunch (while still in our pjs).

And then we went back to my parents house for a little while longer before heading home with full bellies and happy hearts.

And we all felt like Hayes once again!

Family Christmas Pictures

Sometimes it take a lot of work to get our "perfect" Christmas card picture and sometimes it just happens. One morning before church, I looked around and realized that we all coordinated. I hustled everyone outside to the backyard and started snapping away. (It happened to be a cheer competition weekend for Reese so her hair was straightened but we put a little curl back in it with the curling iron.)

I was able to get some shots of the kids before church...

And then after church we set up the tripod to get a family picture. It took several tries but we eventually got a good one.

Reese took our picture...

It all worked out so perfectly that I don't think I could have done better if I had planned it.

Broken

A couple of weeks ago Reese was doing a back walkover and fell. She is having a tumbling block. She can do a back walkover...she has been doing it for a while now...but for some reason she started blocking. She would crumble to her left as she went backwards. At first we just laughed about it and didn't know what was going on. One night at cheer practice she did it and fell with all of her weight on to her straightened out left arm. She held it together during practice but the second she saw me she started crying. I asked her if it just hurt a little bit or if it hurt enough to go to the doctor. She said she needed to go to the doctor. We talked about it with Lance and slept on it that night. The next morning she said it was still hurting pretty bad so I took her to an urgent care first thing in the morning. They took x-rays and said their was no break. The doctor gave her a sling and said to wear it for 3-5 days until she was feeling better. A couple of days later they called and said the radiologist looked at the x-rays and that everything looked good. By that Sunday (we visited the doctor on a Wednesday), she was fine and playing around. Wednesday she had tumble again and would come off the floor for water and cry that her arm was hurting. I kept telling her it was just still a little sensitive but that she was tough. The next Wednesday before leaving for her tumble class she cried and cried that she didn't want to go. She said she was afraid it was going to still hurt. I was a little annoyed at this point because she really didn't talk much about it hurting except on tumble days and I thought she was trying to get out of tumbling. When we would ask her how bad it hurt on a scale of 1-10 she would say a 5. The girl cries when I brush her hair so we aren't really sure what "hurt" means to her sometimes. Finally Wednesday night we said we would schedule an appointment with an orthopedist for the next day to get it checked again. Lance took her and the x-rays from the urgent care on Thursday afternoon. He said as soon as the orthopedist looked at the x-rays from the urgent care place he saw a break in her elbow. I think the urgent care doctor focused on her wrist instead of her elbow and missed the break. When he texted me that it was broken I felt SO bad. I could just picture myself giving her a hard time and telling her to suck it up...when her arm was actually broken!! So now she is in a cast for the next three weeks...through Christmas and New Years! She is taking it like a champ though. She needs help doing a few things but is happy that she has a holiday break from cheer so that she doesn't miss much. I think she will only have to sit out at three practices with her cast and then will need to take it easy for a little bit after that. That was the only time she cried once she knew she was getting a cast because she thought she wouldn't be able to cheer. Hopefully she will heal quickly and recover quickly so she can get back out there with her team. Of course Friday at school was so fun because everyone wanted to sign her cast. I had to drop something off to her a little before 9:00 and it was full of signatures. 

Life Group Christmas Party

We started a new life group back in August and from the beginning this group just clicked. Each couple is so special and we have enjoyed getting to know them all. We had a Christmas party this past Friday and it was so fun!

Lance was gifted a few bottles of red wine a couple of months ago so we brought one of them to share with our group. We looked it up and it was a $100 bottle of wine so we had to try it! We usually just buy our faves at the grocery store or Costco so this was fun to try. Unfortunately when we were taking the cork out it crumbled in the bottle. So Lance used a sifter to sift it out in to a jar. It was pretty funny to watch. And no, it was not a tacky sweater party...Lance just wanted to wear his tacky sweater.

All the ladies...

The morning of the party these four guys went to play golf. It was freezing but they had a blast. They played a game where the losers had to serve the winners that night at the party. Can you guess who won?

We did a white elephant gift exchange. There were a lot of great gifts...

And one interesting gift...a live lobster. He took it like a champ though and cooked it that night when he got home.

We played a game and had so much fun and lots of laughs!

And took some cute pictures...that's about right...joyful and bah humbug!

It really was such a fun night and we can't wait to have fun with these guys again soon!