A Merry Christmas After All and Other Ramblings

So, despite all the Anti Christmas I was feeling a week before Christmas, our family ended up having a wonderful Christmas!! We finally did get the shelves and pictures back in place and although I did not put out all the usual decorations, we had many Christmas cards from friends and family that filled those shelves beautifully. We managed to get quite a few of our favorite traditions completed, including making Christmas goodies and having a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas Eve. Even though I felt like everything wasn't as it should be, the boys were happy as ever and enjoyed every moment of the season. God love them!

Christmas morning went off without a hitch, even though My Honey and I were both sick as dogs. My parents came up to our house for the morning. I baked a breakfast casserole for everyone and we just enjoyed being together and opening gifts. This year I had hidden the boys big gifts and created a treasure hunt that the boys had to use to find them. After all the smaller gifts were opened and they thought that was it, I mentioned that there might just be one more gift for each of them. I told them to look in the tree. They found the first clue and the hunt began. The hunt took them throughout our home and backyard and then eventually down to my mom's house. They had a great time following the clues and it was really fun watching them as they worked together to figure them out. We finally made it into my dad's machine shop where they found their gifts. Muffin Man got the new bicycle he wanted. He just recently learned to ride his old bike without training wheels and really needed a larger bike. He looked like a clown on his old bike, it was so small. Little Man received his first gun. His dad is a gun enthusiast and loves to go out to the shooting range to shoot targets. He has been wanting to give Little Man a gun for a while and take him out with him but we just did not feel he was ready yet. This past year he has really matured and we felt it was time. Little Man was beside himself with glee!!! He could not have been happier. He and My Honey went out to the range the very next day and he did really well.

For those of you who are aghast that we would buy our son a gun, allow me to put your mind at rest. We have a gun safe where our guns are safely stored and the boys have NO IDEA how to open that safe nor will they until they are adults. The only time my son will be able to use, touch, or even look at his gun will be when My Honey is present and involved.

Back to Christmas morning. after all the hullabaloo was over, we spent the rest of the day just resting and watching the boys play with all their toys. As I mentioned earlier, both My Honey and I were sick. I was beginning to develop a killer sinus infection and My Honey ended up with Bronchitis. We both ended up at urgent care that weekend and were put on antibiotics. So, based on how we were feeling, we really did nothing for the rest of the day which seemed to be fine with everyone. All in all it was a very low key, enjoyable day.

New Years eve at our house has traditionally been not much different than any other night. Maybe we rent a movie and make some popcorn, but we rarely even manage to stay up till midnight. This New Year's, my good friend Michelle invited us over to spend the evening with them. They too, usually have a very low key, early night for New Year's but we both decided this was the year for a change. We made some snacks and finger foods, bought hats and noise poppers, ordered pizza, and spent the evening playing Wii and visiting. All the kids had a BLAST and would have happily stayed up all night but the four of us adults were struggling to stay awake. We did manage it though and we went out front at the stroke of midnight and, I'm sure, woke up quite a few people who had gone to bed early. LOL. The kids were a riot with their horns and poppers. They just had a ball. It is really nice, now that the boys are a bit older and we can do stuff like that. We really had a GREAT time. Thanks Michelle, for inviting us over. Next year is at my house!

So, all in all, the holidays were really great. I guess the lesson I learned is that I needn't run myself ragged for our family to have a good Christmas. I always try to get so much accomplished and I do so much for the boys. And while I love doing all those things, it usually means there are many other things that I don't get done. This year was different. There were many things I usually do that I didn't do this year but there were other things that usually don't get done that this year I did get accomplished! But regardless of what I was doing or not doing or how crazy I felt, my boys were happy and enjoying themselves. And in the end, isn't that what matters?

This past Monday our household returned to normal. School is back in session and we have spent the last two days getting back into the swing of things. It is so hard to get back on track after a break. But back on track we are. Thankfully the first two days back were full of many hands on activities that helped make getting back into the routine, fun. The boys were both really good and there were no complaints. We just picked right back up where we had left off and things are going smoothly.

Now, just a quick note about my Wednesday goal setting. Last week I said my goal was to get all our photos off the computer. Well, I did get that accomplished and then when I was finished with that, I was so motivated that I pulled out ALL my loose photos from the last how many years, and I organized them all by year. What a job!! It took me pretty much the entire week, but I feel so accomplished!!! It was a killer job because it meant sitting on the floor for long periods of time sorting through boxes, and my back was killing me. BUT, I had so much fun! The boys spent much of the time with me, looking at all the pictures and laughing about how they looked when they were younger. I now feel really motivated to get caught up on my scrap booking. I also feel relieved knowing that all my photos are in one place and safe.

Now that I have all the old photos off my computer, I need to get my old camera program removed from the computer and download the new camera software so that I can get some new pictures posted here. That is my goal for this week.