christmas in gainesville

I just informed Zach that blogging events with his side of the family is an overwhelming task because we are nonstop action the whole time and if Beka gets the camera at any point there will be at least 900 pictures!  We had a great time spending Christmas/post Christmas with Zach's family.  All 19 of us were there together for the first time since the three new grandchildren were added to the group.  We spent the days playing just dance and donkey kong on the wii, opening presents, hanging out at the park, playing games until all hours at night, staring and laughing at cutely adorable kids, and getting way too little sleep...ok maybe that last one was just me...well probably jess too...

 As wonderful as our time was it is always nice to get back home.  We've spent the last couple days cleaning up Christmas, catching up on laundry, and playing with our gifts.  After being on the go for almost two weeks, I was glad to sit for a few days, reflect on the fun with both our families and get ready to begin a new year with our family of 5.

christmas morning

I'm going to go ahead and say it, my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were not the best ever.  15 minutes after leaving my parents house on Christmas Eve I started not feeling well.  I ended up throwing up on the side of Pike Road in a parking lot (blech!) and continued for the next 12 hours!!  I missed our Christmas Eve service, missed making our Happy Birthday Jesus cake, missed making dinner (they ate canned ABCs), missed watching It's a Wonderful Life with Zach, and missed setting out Christmas.  I just sat on the couch and watched Zach do it and went back to bed.  I was quite sad and quite pitiful to tell the truth.  Thankfully I felt better by the next day, not perfect but better, and was able to open presents with the boys.  They each had a few things under the tree and then we took them outside to show them their big present.  We bought a fort/clubhouse/swingset and they were very surprised.  It was raining though so they couldn't play on it which actually was good because we had to hurry and get dressed for church and packed up to leave for Gainesville after church.  I felt hurried, hectic, chaotic, overwhelmed and icky pretty much the whole day except for our time at church.  I know many people didn't make it to worship at the prospective churches that morning and that's ok but I was very very very thankful for that short time where it seemed like the day stopped and I was able to rest and relax in Him and the glory of what Christmas is.  It was just what I needed and I was so thankful for the amazing gift of that time.

coconuts for christmas

We had a great time with my family for our time together at Christmas.  We had our "Christmas" Friday the 23rd and ate our traditional prime rib dinner and then took the kids for a walk around the block while the presents magically appeared under the tree.  My mom put coconuts in Micah and Connor's stockings because they are completely obsessed with Swiss Family Robinson (where they throw coconut bombs) but they had never seen a real one.  Micah kept asking and asking Zach to open the coconut so he could drink the milk.  When he finally did this was the face we got!

Nasty or not the coconut is one of his favorite gifts!

next generation

We spent the morning with some of my friends from forever and their children.  Its crazy looking at this picture when I have vivid memories of sleepovers with their mamas when I wasn't much older than Micah!

gingerbread houses

During our Christmas visit to Enterprise, Christina fixed all the stuff to make gingerbread houses with all the kids.  Well Abby didn't really make one but she did enjoy the M&Ms!  After the houses they made reindeer food to put out on Christmas Eve.  The next day they had their houses for dessert :)