It was a pretty lazy Christmas Eve morning. Everyone slept well and Campbell continues to feel better each day. She even ate today-the first time really all this week. The highlight of the morning was baths before breakfast. The big kids in one tub and the little ones in the other. Graham could have stayed in the bathtub forever playing contently by himself. Mom couldn’t get over how much he seemed to enjoy the bath today. Campbell enjoys the bath as long as you aren’t spraying her down.
After getting on clothes, everyone headed downstairs to eat. The boys are on a pop tart kick right now and Campbell and Reagan love their jelly toast. Mom had some Christmas cards for everyone to finish coloring. After that they played for awhile and then the fussing started. Since we were going to have a long day, Mom thought that an early morning rest time might be in order. Campbell and Graham went to sleep without a fuss and Reagan and Anderson rested quietly on Mom’s bed. When they all got up, we couldn’t hold them off any longer because they were ready to go to Nonna’s house and open presents.
Beebee and Papaw were there and waiting on us and everyone seemed hungry when we arrived. Nonna’s chocolate pie was excellent but the kids favorites were the baked beans. Campbell did enjoy the pinto bean salad. The kids all ate decent-but were too interested in going to play. Actually, all Anderson could think about was getting up in the attic to look for the model train set that Jason had 30 years ago. He soon forgot about this when Pops mentioned present time.
The kids all helped pass out presents and they took their jobs pretty seriously. We hadn’t really talked about taking turns but they did so without a problem. Reagan was pretty adamant that the oldest was to go first and she started rattling off the order. Mom reminded her that Papaw was the oldest so he would be the first one. That still made her the first of the kids so she was pleased. The favorite gifts were Belle doll (Reagan), Pops’ shot gun (Anderson), train track (Graham), Sleepy (Campbell), money (Robby) and the rolling cart (Tara). We quickly tore through a pile of presents larger than the state of Rhode Island! As soon as the kids would open something they were ready to take it out of the box.
Nonna had everyone an outfit or two in a box to open. Anderson opened his, made a face and then promptly put the lid back on. He did say thank you when Mom prompted him but clothes were not his thing. Though Reagan and Graham seemed pretty excited about their clothes. Even though he wasn’t happy about his clothes, he was interested in his shoes he got-which is odd because he could have cared less about trying them on in the store. I wish I had a video of him putting the lid back on the box-trying his hardest to be polite!
After a little bit of playing and snacking, it was time to go to church. Dad had a packaged on the porch at home so him and Graham ran home to take a load and get the box out of the rain. They made it back just in time and we all piled in the car. Since Graham had been with Dad he didn’t get to get out of the car. So when he started screaming as we were leaving, Mom was trying to tell him we were coming back and yada yada yada. Finally, she asked what was wrong since he kept screaming (we were already all the way down Nonna’s street). He said “Daddy got my fingers”-Mom looked and his fingers were smashed in the door. She hurdled the seat as Dad was opening the door. He was fine and escaped without a bruise but was a little shaken. Mom worked on calming him down and changing his clothes on the way to church.
At church, they had child care but who wants to go to class on Christmas Eve. So everyone went with us. The kids did great-it did help having almost 2 adults per child. Reagan bounced between Nonna and Grannymom. Anderson spent most of his time in Pops’ lap-sleeping the last half. Graham was pretty much all over the place and Campbell enjoyed it all but was a squirmy thing. She did raise both of her hands during the music once.
When it was time for candles, Reagan was down the row from Mom but Mom could tell she was thrilled to do her own candle. Graham and Dad worked together on a candle. Anderson had just woken up but he didn’t want to do a candle. Their little eyes were wide open-seeing the candle light fill the church
Millie and Carter were in the hall so everyone played with them for a bit. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Reagan said “wait, we didn’t go to classes, this is the best church day ever”-she seemed to like skipping class! Graham was worried that Dad knew the way back to Nonna’s house but we made it just fine. We attempted a group photo and had a snack before playing a bit more and then putting on pajamas.
At home, we threw out our reindeer food for Rudolph and all of the others to eat. It looked like snow falling in the pictures but it was just oats, red hots and glitter (yes, I let my kids touch glitter) Dad even threw some on top of the house so the reindeer could see it better. Once inside we worked on our Santa cookies. Anderson opened the box with the Wise Men in it and everyone took a turn pulling down Santa. Tonight was the big night, Santa fell into the chimney. While we waited on the cookies, Dad read Twas the Night Before Christmas.
It is funny the nights that everyone goes to bed without a fuss…and this was one of those nights. They are so excited about Santa coming in the morning. Mom did remind them about not being able to wake up before 7-hopefully, someone will remember. Anderson is very worried though that Santa doesn’t know what a round house is. He said that if he doesn’t know what it is then he can’t get it for him. Mom tried to assure him that Santa could probably find one on the internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment