Christmas' Galore!!

Finally a blog about how we spent this glorious season!   Believe it or not we STILL aren't done...we are anticipating our final Christmas celebration in a couple of weeks with Todd's mom's side of the family.   Until then, here is how we spent the last couple of weeks...

Celebration #1 (Grandaddy):   Christmas morning we couldn't wait for Eli to get up so that we could show him that Santa did indeed come and that Jesus' birthday had finally arrived.   Of course, this is the morning Eli decided to sleep in.   Don't worry we weren't too disappointed, instead we made sure some last minute details were in place to make it extra special.  When Eli finally woke up we took him downstairs and show him that Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk!   Eli may have cared more if he wasn't in such awe over the presents that suddenly appeared under the tree : )  Believe it or not, we did tell him to wait to open these until Grandaddy arrived (we know we will never be able to do this again...) and bought a couple of hours looking through the contents of our stockings.   Once Grandaddy arrived he brought his own piles of gifts and we realized we should have started opening a little sooner (and maybe hide some of the gifts for next year!)  Eli started opening his gifts and he was a little distracted.   Each gift he opened he wanted to stop and play with (can you blame him?!?)  But the crazy parents we are we told him to wait to play with them and FINISH OPENING ALL OF YOUR GIFTS!!   Four hours and 50 cars later (seriously) we were done and able to enjoy a cold (previously hot) breakfast.   We then whisked Eli away for an early nap (it actually worked) and we had a devotional reminding us of our need for a Savior and what His birth means to us.  

Celebration #2 (Grandaddy, Memaw and Papaw the Great, Great Aunt Jan, Great Aunt Joan and cousin Celeste):  Toting half of our cars and 2 kids we headed over to the Great Grandparents to enjoy a Christmas dinner.   Although there were a lot of beautiful, colorful, and breakable items I think we we managed to make it through the night without any casualties (although I think when we left we saw all the Christmas people in the Christmas village face down in the pond... they were "ice skating" ) We had a great time and Anna enjoyed meeting everyone!  

Celebration #3 (Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Rachel Uncle Kyle cousins Libby Davis and Brett, Aunt Reebs Uncle Jason cousin Roman): Eli was so excited to see all of his cousins (and the Aunts were excited to get their hands on Anna)   One thing we realized this time around is that Eli is no longer the baby.  He used to get spoiled rotten by his cousins but now there is a new baby in the family.   So he was kind of at the awkward trying to be a big kid but still in diapers/nap phase.  He had a BLAST and still talks about his "FRIENDS" (Cousins).  I think it will take hanging out with them one more time and he will potty train himself so that he can be a big boy with the rest of them.
The actual celebration was...crazy.  Even though it wasn't aesthetic enough for my sister Reebs, we managed to get all the gifts into the family room and let the kids open everything first.   Once that crazyiness was done we closed them off into a room and let the adults open their gifts in peace and quite (yeah right).   When we looked in on the kids we realized they had out all the musical instruments and had started a band!   It was precious, and they really didn't sound THAT bad.  

Between all the visits with friends and family, and our new family of 4 we have felt so blessed this Christmas season.  We can't wait for celebration #4!  

P.S. to see a complete album of pictures click on the link to the right and go to December 2009 album!