Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

Christmas week was a little hectic for me. I procrastinated in making the gifts for my family and on top of that I had to work all week. Each night after Brigham went to bed I would make a gift before going to bed. Krystin got an apron made from pillowcases. I wanted to keep this one for myself. Derek and my dad got t-shirts I made using my Silhouette SD. Arden got a doll and sock dog, and for my mom I got 4 mismatched picture frames and painted them white. Then each frame has a letter cutout with pictures behind it. The frames spell MIMI. I hope everyone loves their gifts as much as I enjoyed being able to make them. I hope I am able to think of new ideas for everyone each year so that I can make my family's gifts every year. Anyways, I never got to bed before 1am this past week and last night I was up until 4am. I had to finish my mom and dad's gifts and then wrap Brigham's gifts and assemble his Cozy Coupe. I couldn't work on the gifts during the day because we spent the day baking treats for our families with Daniel and Katelyn and then we had Christmas dinner with all of Mark's family at his mom's house. It was a nice day and I loved having people cook with me. It was so much faster! We got home from dinner at about 10:45 and I immediately got started on the gifts for my mom and dad. I never even took off my coat and boots until much later in the night. I finished the gift making at about 1am. I then cleaned our kitchen, living room, and dining room and poured out the contents of the Cozy Coupe box so I could get to work on snapping the plastic car together. I was a little bummed that Mark didn't put the car together before he went to bed at midnight but I figured it was something that wasn't important to him or he was just hoping I would do it so he wouldn't have to. This morning he said it was because he thought we would just put it together later Christmas morning. Anyways the car took nearly 2 hours to assemble and it was a major pain. I am super grateful for the video instructions that are provided on the Little Tikes website because the instructions that came with the car was just 30 something pictures that weren't always the easiest to understand. I finally got the thing together only to realize that one of the pieces partially popped out of place and could only be fixed by removing the roof and screws. I left that for Mark to complete today. I wrapped Brigham's other 2 gifts and Mark's gifts and finally went to bed at 4am. I was pooped. I was up at 7:25am waiting for my boys to get up so they could see their presents! Brigham woke up at close to 8 and we played on the bed with Mark for about 30 minutes. He finally woke up enough to get my gifts together and we all headed to the living room. Brigham loved his toys and Mark was happy with his Ipod touch, dark chocolate truffles, and new coat. When it was my turn to open gifts I had to play Let's Make a Deal. From the beginning my plan was to always trade until I got to the last gift. The first gift I gave up was a new pair of Rainbows. The second was some used lotion from our bathroom. The third (which I went back and forth about) was a Nook color. Finally the time had come for me to see what I blindly traded these gifts for. A Kindle! It was hard to not be a little disappointed (especially after I looked at the info sheet on the Nook compared to the Kindle) but it is still a fun gift. Mark didn't buy and of the gifts yet. He is hoping to find my gift on Craigslist for a good deal.

We had breakfast with Melanie's family, Daniel, and Katelyn and then headed to my dad's for the afternoon. We are home now and waiting for the snow that is supposedly headed our way. I hope it comes. It will be the first white Christmas in Charlotte since 1947!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I can't believe it has been over a month since I have posted. I have been working a lot. I'm not sure if that is a reasonable excuse or not. There hasn't really been much going on around here. We decorated for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year Mark was excited about decorating for the first time. He even hung lights along the roof. They are the old fashioned big bulbs and I just love it. I thought the Christmas tree was going to be a major headache with Brigham but he actually doesn't really care much about it at all. On a side note, each year we just take the ornaments off the tree and leave the lights and ribbon on it and just set it in the attic portion of the shed. Well this year when I went to take it out, there was a huge spider/cob web all over the top half of the tree. Mark pulled the tree down and cleaned the web off. He assured me that no spiders were in the tree because it had been too cold and spiders either die or go live in people's houses for the colder months. Well this morning as I was fixing our tree skirt (which is actually just 2 white bed sheets wrapped to disguise the box our tree sits on to make it taller) I see a couple spiders. I call Mark in to save me from these ferocious beasts and he finds several more spiders. Apparently they have been living in the tree all along. How gross and scary (I hate spiders and most any kind of bug). I just want to throw this tree away and start new next year with a pre-lit tree that comes with an airtight box for storing. Instead I will definitely be buying a tree bag. I think they make these and I surely hope they do. I want a bug free tree next year.

Anyways, Brigham is finally saying a word. His word of choice is AMEN. I love it. He says it at the end of every prayer and it is just too cute. He started saying this on either Wednesday or Thursday of this last week. He has also started running and he has started playing peek a boo again but instead of hiding behind a blanket, he hides behind furniture.