Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful day. I had a great day with my family.

I went to bed about 1am this morning after a night of wrapping and some minor cleaning for the day. I slept pretty well. I started sleeping with ear plugs a few nights ago and it has really helped. Mr. Husband will occasionally snore. Well, he almost always snores but he occasionally snores so loud that I have problems sleeping. That hasn't been an issue since I started wearing the ear plugs.

The kids woke up around 6:30 this morning and we started unwrapping gifts at that time. There were an insane amount of gifts to open because my mom and sister go overboard every year but I'm not complaining about that.

My mom and I made wonderfully yummy breakfast casserole. It recipe says that it should only take 40 - 45 minutes to bake but I've been finding that it takes about two hours of so. I knew about this before hand so we were ready for it to take a little bit longer and it turned out wonderfully.

My sister, her husband and their boys came over and they had their turn to unwrapping presents. Again, an insane amount of presents and lack of sleep made me a little grumpy by the end of the unwrapping session but I tried to stay civil. The boys each received a gift that made too much noise. At least too much noise for me. They really liked these gifts, a voice changer and a microphone, and they wanted to spend time playing with them. I just wanted them to unwrap their gifts so I could take a nap so I confiscated them and we proceeded.

After they were finished I had a chance to take a short nap. It was only 40 or so minutes long which to some people is a great nap but nap to me is really 2 hours of longer. It was refreshing and the thing that I needed to keep going the rest of the day.

I woke up and had a shower. It was magnificent. I couldn't believe how good it felt to shower. We had been so busy lately that I haven't had time to really shower in, well let's just say awhile. I felt like I had lost 10 pounds of grime and slime.

After we all had a chance to shower and get ready we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house where we got to see my family. I have a large extended family and they are what I miss the most. I don't really like the town here but I do miss my family. We talked, ate, opened a few more presents and the kids ran around crazy-wild. My Uncle also got out some pictures and we spent some time talking and smiling at memories that we shared.

We are back at my mom's house now. The kids are in bed and I'm ready to have a good lay down with a book that I've been working on. We set out for New City either tomorrow night or the next morning.

In some ways I'm excited to get back to my apartment and clean, organize and prepare for the new year but I'm going to miss my mom, sister and the rest of my family here. They are what make this place special and this Christmas wonderful.

Highlights of this Christmas:
-Little Girl receiving big girl panties and needing to wear them that very second even if that meant wearing them over her pajama pants but under her tutu.
-Middle Child dancing at the very sight of the presents. He skips and wiggles at the same time that he is bobbing his head.
-#1 Son receiving a Game Boy advance that I'm sure will drive me crazy but that he will love.
-Mr. Husband receiving an electric guitar. I'm still trying to convince him that he needs to be the third member of Tenacious D but he just laughs. (I'm serious.)
-All the wonderful gifts that I have received. I'm loving the Superman appeal that I'm wearing now.