December 26, 2007--Christmas

We had a nice Christmas. This was the year to spend it with my husband's side of the family. We trade off between families every other year. We were up at about five-thirty yesterday morning, and woke the kids up at about six. The kids all enjoyed their presents. I think the highlight was Abby's dollhouse. It took awhile to put together, though. Silly me--when the box said something about over 200 pieces, I thought that meant furniture and accessories, not pieces of the building itself. I got a big huge crockpot, a stockpot, a toolbox, and a pair of earrings from Erick. I've always wanted my own toolbox. Erick has so many that it's hard to find what I'm looking for. We went to my in-laws church for our first family get-together, with his maternal grandparents. The family has grown so much lately that we can't all fit in Grandma's house anymore, so this is the first year we've had to use a different location. Erick's brother Ben is engaged now, to Kelsi (the girl I blogged about earlier who is the sister of my my brother's wife) and he also finally moved out and is living on his own. Erick's cousins were there, with their new wives and a new baby. It was a lot of fun, with a lot of good food. Then we went to his paternal grandma's house for another family get together. There wasn't even enough room for everyone to sit on the floor in the livingroom to open presents at the same time. Grandma doesn't expect to live much longer, though, so I doubt we'll be moving any get togethers to another location. She talks a lot about how she's ready to go to heaven. It doesn't seem like Christmas anymore to her without Grandpa. I'm going to miss her when that time comes. She's my grandma as much as my husband's and I love her very much. Today I've almost got the house back into shape. It never ceases to amaze me how the house can get so messy when we weren't even there most of the day. I had to shampoo the livingroom carpet, too. We gave the kids canned grape juice in their stockings, and we had no less than three spills, two of them on the carpet. They technically aren't allowed to eat in the livingroom, but it was Christmas and we relaxed the rules a bit.