Merry Christmas

The house is quiet. The children are sleeping. There is one less dog and two less adults. We've enjoyed Papa's Christmas movie "Tropic Thunder" and will hopefully get a much fuller night's sleep tonight than last night. Christmas was wonderful. It has snowed all day. The whitest Christmas in a long time. We had a great day after a wonderful Christmas Eve with a great turkey dinner, lots of laughs around the Cranium board and a late night walk to church at midnight.

Baby R started the day off early. Poor S didn't know the "let the baby cry" rule at 5am and when our kids got up at 6am, poor S was up snuggling Baby R who had been fussing since 5am. It took about an hour to get the rest of the house up. Bean was his usual "non-rule following" self, ploughing through his stocking. Schmoo was ecstatic about the arrival of her Littlest Pet Shop stuffie that she so desperately wanted and that Santa brought. Uncle R and Uncle C were the last to rise and by 9am the kids had made it through the pile of presents under the tree. The kids were happy about all the things they got. It's so funny to watch them being so focussed on just getting them all unwrapped and then settling in to actually look at all of them. Both Schmoo and Bean were focussed on getting their gifts back to their rooms to organize after the present opening was finished. We managed to convince them to leave the presents from Grandpa W, who came over after church and got to witness them being opened. A big thanks to Grandma Lady for all the wonderful new books and to Nana for all the new art supplies for both Schmoo and Bean!

Papa and Uncle C put together a scrumptious eggs benedict breakfast and then took the kids outside so that at least I could snuggle back into bed. My 2am bedtime and 6am wake up call didn't take long to catch up. I was awoken with a request to come outside. After over 18 months in this house and one failed attempt already, Papa and Chris had managed to successfully afix our house numbers to the house! Now the pizza delivery guy can find us without going to the wrong house first.

Uncle C and S packed up and hit the road just after noon for the long drive home. Uncle C is back to work tomorrow and will be taking S into the lodge with him for new years. It was so great to have them here. To have a big family dinner yesterday and to get to know S a bit better. It's nice to see them so happy together. The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet. Grandpa W spent most of the afternoon with Bean, who seemed to want all of his attention. Auntie E and Uncle R got to go for a nice long walk in the snow. I spent most of the afternoon trying to snooze as the ticklings of a sore throat and stuffy nose started brewing. The kids watched their new movie "Wall-E" and bedtime came early since there was no quiet time. Poor Bean was miserable and overtired by the time supper time even came around, so he was off to bed first.

We managed a big house cleanup before bedtime. The vacuum was out, the bathrooms were cleaned. I made a final attempt to dig deep in the bowels of the couch and found Papa's best Christmas present - the missing clicker! Supper was a warm bowl of turkey soup that Auntie E had spent the day making. With quiet children, the four adults have spent a quiet evening in front of the TV. I think tomorrow holds more activity. For the first time since we moved here, I'm going to venture out to the Boxing Day sales on main street.....a new ski jacket is on my wish list. Maybe we'll even find our way out to the tobogganing hill in all this fresh snow.

Merry Christmas everyone! We toasted the missing grandmothers yesterday! You were all missed!