Happy Holidays

MERRY CHRISTMAS! :-)

I can't believe Christmas is 2 days away! It seems like we just celebrated Thanksgiving. We have a very busy holiday weekend planned. Today Bob gets off work at noon and he's bringing Lorena home with him. She'll be babysitting for us since I have a 1:20 ultrasound appointment. Hopefully we'll find out how far along I am soon. Tonight Lisa & Mike are coming over to exchange Christmas pressents. Last night Bob took Amber to our other neighbors (John & Chrissy) to exchange. My cough was really bad so I stayed home and let Jackson go to bed (we had planned on keeping him up to open gifts but he was tired anyways). They got Amber a cute hair bow set and a diary set that came w/ a pen that has 2 colors (all of which were proudly displayed on Amber's legs this morning LOL). Wednesday morning our neighbor Tracey stopped by to drop off gifts. She got us a game for game night and the kids a tent w/ a crawl tunnel. Since we have a crawl tunnel (and not much room for the tent) we took it to the play room at the tennis club & the kids had a BLAST! It was a great gift! Since they're up there playing 3 days a week it will get lots of use!

Tonight we're also going to let the kids open the gifts Caletta got them. She sends quite a bit & since they're 3 & almost 2, they get bored of opening after 10 min. & want us to do it. So we break it all up so they enjoy everything. We'll open Mike & Lisa's, after they leave I plan on making sugar cookies with Amber (so we'll have cookies to leave out for Santa of course) and then we'll open Auntie Caletta's gifts. Saturday morning we're going to Bob's mom's at 10am. She's doing brunch. So they'll open up whatever their Grandma & papa got them and I think whatever their cousin and uncle got them too. After we leave Bob's mom's we'll prob. swing by our house, drop off gifts and let the dogs out & then head over to my mom's.

Bob's family tends to over do things and over buy and I feel like it's a competition and a bit chaotic. Thankfully my mom's is much more low key. She gets the kids each 2 gifts. 1 is a small box of clothes (one or two outfits) and then a nice toy. She sends a savings bond since it's the gift that will keep giving. We'll have lasagna and an amish chicken and just relax. It's a nice time. If we have time we'll go to church but since we're going to be driving all over I'm not going to rush.

Christmas eve I'll have the kids throw out the "reindeer food" into the front lawn and leave cookies & milk for Santa. We'll set up a few toys so when they wake up on Christmas morning they'll see them. I have a folding slide and some stuffed animals and a cop car for Jackson.

My family (mom, sister & her fiance) will come over around 10:00'ish and we'll hang out, open gifts and I'm making Christmas lunch. It's nice and laid back. I love it. I'm making a huge meal! I'm a little nervous because I'm making a turkey breast for the 1st time ever. We're having turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potato, sweet potato, gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet corn and I have a cheese & sausage platter to set out and I'm making deviled eggs. I have red velvet petit fours for dessert. I also am making my famous apricot swizzle punch. I can't wait.