Christmas Week

We had such an amazing Christmas week and weekend, I don't even know how to fit it all into one post. It was great to have most of my siblings in town for the week, and while I missed my brother and sister in law that couldn't make it, we had tons of fun without them. Sorry M&M! I will try to not be too long winded, but there will definitely be a lot of picture sharing. Here we go.

My sister, her husband, and my nephew arrived via the red eye bright and early Monday morning. We spent the day at my parents hanging out, playing trains napping, and trying to fix the mess up that happened with the kids' comforters, more on that later. In the evening, an old family friend came over and we did dinner and a few cocktails. Jules got her first taste of Grandma and Grandpa's ever. She found their dog's bed under the treat table, and she happily napped the evening away.

On Tuesday morning, the kids and I rand a few daycare errands to make sure everything was taken care of before the holiday. Then we went to my parents to spend the rest of the day. The kids wanted to have a movie night, so after a healthy dinner of Chicago style pizza, they all piled into the recliner(s) upstairs and watched some Christmas movies.

While they were doing that, my dad and I headed to the mall to obtain the stained duvet for Harrison's bed I had just returned the day before. Long story short, I ordered a duvet cover on Black Friday, it came and sat in the package for weeks. When I opened it, it was stained so I called to order a new one and made sure they knew I needed it by Christmas Eve. That was on Monday morning. Monday afternoon, I return the defective merchandise to the local store. Tuesday afternoon, I get a shipping notification letting me know it will be arriving Friday. Um WHAT!? After lots of time on hold with UPS and the retailer, it is decided the best option is to go back to the store and repurchase the stained one I had returned the day before. Thankfully they still had it in the store, and the crisis was averted. Luckily Harrison didn't notice, and wouldn't care, about a stained duvet cover. So maybe not as short of a story as intended, but there was my Christmas freak out. The new one did arrive on Friday and is not stained.

Wednesday morning it was back over to my parents. My other sister and her hubs had arrived the night before, so we wanted to get in some hangout time with them. Even though I tried to keep us on time, the kids were late getting down for naps, mostly because they were overtired and couldn't fall asleep. So we rushed to get ready for mass, and thankfully made it on time. Thanks to Brooke's accessory choices, we go a few giggles and stares on our way in. This girl is a diva in training.

She refused to take off her sunglass for the first 30 minutes of mass.

The kids did ok for mass, but not as good as they usually do. Too much excitement. After mass we picked up Robbie and headed to his parents. The kids had way too much fun opening gifts. At one point Harrison was screaming like a banshee every time he would open a gift, and it wasn't just his presents either. If he helped someone open, he still went ape. It was ridiculous. Brooke was very good at helping hand out our gifts to family, which I was very proud of. We made it home shortly before 9, and the kids went straight to bed. Rob and I went straight to work on bed assembly. It took us as long as it took to watch Home Alone, so not too bad.

Christmas morning was great. They came out yelling "two beds," and immediately hopped up and dug into their stockings. We had to make it to my parents house, so we rushed them through opening a bit more than we should have. Lesson learned for next year. They were so happy and content, I'm sure they would have hung out in their beds all day if we would have let them.

By the time we made it to my parents' house they were hungry and overstimulated. Harrison slowly lost his cool and eventually refused to open gifts, or act like a normal human being. It was early nap time for them, and thankfully the afternoon went much better. We enjoyed a late lunch, they opened the rest of their presents, and we spent some time with our loved ones.

One of my favorite gifts of the day.

They were loving Cousin Charlie's new game.

We headed home in the early evening so we could get the beds moved around. They watched Cars, a gift from Santa, while we disassembled and reassembled beds. When we tucked them in that night, they asked for their old beds, and then asked if they could sleep in the living room. Maybe the new beds weren't as big of a hit as we thought? Thankfully we haven't had old bed requests since Christmas night.

Family shot after lunch on Friday

Our weekend was filled with lots and lots of family time. My brother, his fiance, and the kids' Godmother, and I got to sneak away for a little adult time at Eddie's on Friday night. Saturday evening we finally started to tackle the after Christmas mess. Thanks to Space Saver bags, I freed up enough space in the garage that we can now store toys they have outgrown. We also put together a big donation pile.

Sunday morning we opened gifts with Robbie's brother and his kids. After naps we headed over to my uncles for dinner and one last round of gifts for the kids. Then we closed out the evening with a little SNF action. Go Steelers!

"Oh my goodness!! Charlie has a present!!"

Putting his bath time shaving kit to good use.

The week was utterly exhausting, and I'm pretty sure I'll be catching up on sleep for the next month, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Since my siblings all live hundreds and thousands of miles away, we have to squeeze every last second out of the time we have together. As of 11 am this morning, all of my siblings were on their ways home, and now it's back to, mostly, life as normal.

I hope all of you had an amazing holiday week and weekend as well. Does anyone have any big New Year's plans? We are taking the kids and heading to some friends' house for a low key get togther. I'm sure there will be board games, and of course lots of drinking involed. Cheers to another short week!