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Who's Tired?

I'm guessing you are too busy with your Christmas celebrating to read much about ours, but I'll share some pictures anyway.

Rick was heavily involved in planning the ward Christmas party this year.  It turned out pretty good.  The primary children sang a song and, as usual, Ricky found a place right in front of the microphone.  Andrew and Makayla hid toward the back.
 I was proud of Reyes for participating willingly in the song the young men sang.  I know this is a tough age for wanting to be in front of people, but I found myself slightly irritated by the "too cool" attitude of some of the boys.

 The kids got to visit with Santa.  Sean's attitude toward Santa was the complete opposite of my expectations.  He LOVED him!  I was too busy running around with other things to get a picture of him, but Makayla did pretty good with the camera snapping a picture of Ricky and Reyes.

The kids were so excited for their break from school.  We have tried to play basketball together about every day and to switch things up with some other activities like swimming and making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.

I was proud of Makayla's innovative ginerbread "teepee" when the graham cracker house wasn't staying up well.

On Christmas Eve, we stayed busy the entire day.  In the morning, we went to Amana for a German family style breakfast.

 After breakfast, we went to The Little Red Wagon Toy Store.  I'm not a big toy store fan, but I really like this place because it is just so cute and fun for the kids.  The kids were able to earn a prize if they spotted the hidden Grinch in the store.  Andrew is pointing to the sneaky guy hanging out above him.
 After our visit to Amana, we went to a movie together.  Then, we came home to arrange and deliver treat plates to some friends.  For dinner, we went to Texas Roadhouse.  We came home in time to open pajamas and act out the Christmas story from Luke 2.
 It was fun to Skype Grandma and Grandpa Mergenthaler so they could see the kids open the pajamas she had made.
Andrew, especially, had a difficult time falling asleep on Christmas Eve.  I thought it was so sweet that Rick called Grandpa to read Andrew a story.  Andrew loved that time with Grandpa and stayed in bed much better after the story.

When the kids were in bed, we were able to put the presents under the tree.  Santa came later.  I took this picture before the kids got into things.  I was glad for our modest Christmas.  The kids each got a few presents from us and from grandparents.  They were probably most excited about what Santa brought.
 On Christmas morning, the kids got to play with their presents from Santa and see their stockings.
We saved opening the other presents until after church.  The kids were fairly patient with that.  We took a friend of ours, Gloria, to church with us and brought her home afterward for lunch and present opening.  She is such a sweet lady!
 We had roast, potatoes, carrots, and gravy for dinner.  Another widow came home from church with us and we enjoyed having her there as well.  We are still waiting for our new table to be shipped, so we borrowed a friend's plastic table.  It worked just fine.
 Finally, we were able to open presents.
 Emily and Makayla made some sweet cards for us.
 The kids liked their presents.  They played for a little while and then our friends Gloria and Lucienne went home.  Just as they were leaving, the missionaries came to visit.  We were going to help them call home to their parents.  It was cute to see how excited and nervous they were.  I didn't eavesdrop on their conversations too much, but what I did hear made me grateful to these sweet boys and their families.  By the time the missionaries left, I was exhausted.  We had been going non-stop since the morning of Christmas Eve.  We had a simple dinner and put the kids to bed.  It was a good day, but, boy is Christmas exhausting!

Comments

Chelsey said…
I agree, very exhausting. That's why you need to go to someone else's house for the holidays, at least that's what Anjee told me. If you're always visiting though, then your kids don't have any great memories of Christmas at home.
December 27, 2011 at 8:07 AM
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