Ho, Ho, Holy Cow...where has the time gone????

So here it is, already two days post Christmas, which means the New Year is only a hiccough away! Yikes!

The holiday was merry met by all. We opened gifts here on Christmas morning, and I managed to snap a couple of pictures when my camera felt like cooperating (oh, so want a new one, but can't afford what I want. Boo hoo!). Hubby had made a full spread of waffles, bacon, and scrambledy eggs that we grown-ups enjoyed before the festivities, but the boys couldn't seem to eat more than a few bites with all the excitement of the prospect of opening presents. Dining took place on the hand-crafted quilted placemats gifted to me by my best buddy (Hi Lisa!! They were gorgeous...love them!! Might bug you to make me more!)

See this bite, Liam? I'm not really gonna eat it...I'm just gonna look at it a while.

I managed to get one picture of Liam with his marble run before my camera took a dump for a while.

Liam: Oooh...can I play it, can I play it? Jonah: Is it my turn yet?

Neely spent the entire time we opened presents obsessing over the ticking egg timer of Liam's that I confiscated and put up on the bookshelf. When she couldn't figure out how to get it down, she decided to make herself a fixture in the tree. She hadn't messed with the tree since we put it up around Thanksgiving, but for some reason, Christmas morning seemed the perfect time to start climbing it.


The rest of the present opening was pretty uneventful, and the boys both seemed pleased at their haul. Jonah immediately went to work pounding wooden nails into his workbench, and Liam was excited about his Spy Gear.

We then headed up to the in-laws to celebrate the holiday, and a wonderful meal of ham, cheesy potatoes, stuffing (gotta have the stuffin....turkey or not...), baked pineapple, and 24-hour fruit salad. Yum. Present opening commenced promptly after lunch, and the boys helped by playing Santa this year.


Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts, and the boys made out with loads of new books, Legos, and other goodies. Auntie M. probably had the best enjoyed gift of all....a three-drawered organizing cart loaded up with art and craft goodies (she is the art teacher after all!), which the boys promptly dove into. One of the boys in particular already has quite the artistic flair...

Each stroke demanded a similar working of the tongue...it was all I could do to keep from falling off my chair, until he performed this little move:

I'm amazed we managed to get him upstairs and into the bath without turning MIL's entire house black, but we did. The water was a murky gray within seconds, considering he probably used half of the tube's worth of paint to cover his arms.

This was probably one of the most enjoyable holidays I've had in a while, and I'm not sure what to attribute it to. Partly the fact that we were done with the shopping, etc., relatively early in the game, but I think a great deal had to do with the enjoyment of seeing it all through the boys' eyes. They really enjoyed themselves, and I think the rest of us really did because of it. Maybe I was also a bit more relaxed this year for some reason, and I didn't obsess about the small stuff (and neither did anyone else, which I think just added to the chill atmosphere).

The only thing that would have made the holiday perfect would have been to also have shared it with my family in the next state over, but until they figure out that teleportation thing, doing both places in one holiday is not going to happen.

So now we move quickly on to the prospect of the new year...and a new member of our family. The tree is down (amazing how much more room there is in the living room without a tree in it!)...but there are still things to do before I feel ready for this little girl to make her appearance, so I'd best be off for some slumber.