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It WAS a Merry Christmas!!!

I DO apologize for my absence of late! (although I'm not one bit sorry!) Christmas is a family time and I know you all understand that! And this year has been ... probably not the best one EVER - I mean Christmas was FABULOUS back when I had 4 little believers of my own runnin' around here! But this WAS the best Christmas in quite some time!!! And not JUST because of Luz either! Also because each of my children has a "significant other" this year ... and that made it more fun for them - and therefor for ME as well! And that fact that I dearly LOVE allllll of their significant others certainly helps! So, yea... it was a very merry time!

This was a very WEIRD Christmas though! Our norm has always been that the kids got up at about 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, we lit a fire in the fireplace, had coffee and donuts and opened stockings, and then moved straight into presents. THIS year, we slept until 9:00 and I finally gave in and let them open stockings when Amanda texted me to let me know THEY wouldn't be here until around 1:00!!! Things were moving waaaaaay slowly at her house! So, we opened stockings around 11:30... then Derek's girlfriend, Sarah showed up and she opened her stocking... and then Mathew & Carol showed up around noonish, so they opened their stockings... then Amanda & Hector & Luz finally showed up around 2:00!

Finally Amanda and her entourage showed up and we were able to get down to the business at hand! Can you BELIEVE the scene in this house?

Is there an inch to sit down around here? Is there ANY surface that is not covered with wrapped presents??? Goooood grief! HOW did this happen??? (can any one say "Melli, out of control..." ???) Okay... I admit! I WAS bad this year! Verrrrry bad! BUT... the one's who came brought SOME of this too!!!

I know you were dying to see some pics of Luz LOVING Christmas... but... the fact is that most of our pictures ended up being of the top of her head as we watched her enjoy Christmas! LOL! See?
Luz enjoys the doll house that was Nana's "MUST HAVE, sweeeeet deal, found at the last minute AND for HALF PRICE!" present! Honestly... I drove Krysti CRAZY hitting every toy store and aisle we came NEAR looking for just the "perfect" doll house. It had to be just the RIGHT one, or I wasn't buyin... I would be happy to find it by Easter! It had to be wood, and it had to be sturdy and it couldn't be too BIG, nor could it be too small... and the fact that this one was PINK certainly helped! But it was just perfect in EVERY way -- and Luz LOVES it! YAY!

I have yet to give her the Dora Big Wheel we got her. Honestly, I was amazed that she got through all the presents... she wasn't really "in" to opening them at first... but she got better at it as we went along!

After all the presents were open, we sat down to our very UNtraditional meal of lasagne and salad -- along with a tray of croissant sandwiches from Safeway - because Krysti doesn't "do" lasagne. We also had deviled eggs and I forgot to put out the black & green olives. USUALLY I forget to put out the cranberry sauce!

Krysti's Rick didn't come over until later in the evening. I was actually taking a nap at the time he got here and opened his stocking. I didn't feel too bad though -- Hector and Mathew slept through it too! LOL! Poor Rick... we'll make it up to him another year! At least he and Krysti had plenty of time to visit alone with each other... I'm thinkin' that's probably a good thing! But it also meant I got no new pics of the two of them together. Sorry.

I did manage to catch a cold for Christmas... so I am feeling really rough today. Thankfully, Amanda decided not to go to work this morning and so I have gotten to stay home and rest and sleep and sleep and rest... and that's about all I've done today! I tried to convince Mom to stay in her jammies too... but apparently some habits can NOT be broken and I think the lesson I'm supposed to learn from having her MAY be one of "submission"... sometimes I simply MUST submit to doing things HER way! LOL!

posted by Melli at 3:05 PM