Day 26-29

Christmas has continued!! After our Christmas day celebrations, we went to GreatDaddy's on Monday for our Alexander Christmas celebration. I only have one picture from that due to the fact that I had come down with a bad sinus infection and felt miserable. However, a fun day was had. The kids enjoyed getting to see everyone, we had a delicious meal, and we had a fun game of Dirty Santa. We also got a picture of everyone - it always amazes me every year when we seem to manage to get a picture where everyone is looking at the camera! I can't even do that with just my three children!

On Tuesday, we went up to Mama Mae's house for more Christmas fun with Mama Mae, Gramma, Pappy, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Lhen, and Aunt Linda. Charlie enjoyed sharing his Raffi with Mama Mae and reading to her.

The kids had a great time playing with toys they got for Christmas as well as anything and everything the could find!

Mama Mae got a Kit doll from Santa for Christmas and Lucy enjoyed talking about her doll with her.

And poor Oreo was worn out from all the excitement of having three children around!

Wednesday and Thursday have been filled with playing with Christmas presents and trying to clean up the mess that this house has become. I still can't figure out where all these new toys are going to go!!

On Thursday, Lucy had a follow up appointment at the orthopedist to see how her arm was healing. They took off the cast to do xrays, and we were hopeful that she would be done with her cast!

After the xrays, Lucy shut down a little - I think she was nervous that they were going to put a new cast on. Once the doctor told her she didn't need one, she perked right back up! When we sat down in the doctor's office after the xrays, the nurse went into the computer to pull up Lucy's file. After a few awkward seconds of silence, the nurse finally noticed what we had already seen - it was an xray of a leg! She quickly went back in and found the correct one . . . . 

Now that Lucy is cast free, she's got to work on stretching her arm out. Her elbow is tight and she is a little hesitant to move it. She does seem to understand though that it's very important to start working those muscles again. She has done a good job at starting to move things and her wrist and fingers are all back to regular movement. . . we'll work on the elbow tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas morning started early. I got up about 6:15 to start breakfast since our time would be limited this morning due to church. Lucy woke up about 6:30 and she was so excited to see her Beauty and the Beast castle.

She couldn't believe that it was almost as tall as she was!!

At 6:45, we let Lucy get the boys up since we had to get ready for church soon. They weren't too thrilled by the light that early in the morning . . .

However, once they saw all that Santa had brought though, they were so excited!

Everyone had a little bit of playtime while I finished breakfast.

For breakfast, Michael and I had sausage balls and scrambled eggs and the kids ate bacon and eggs and had one of their sugar cookies with their breakfast too!

After breakfast, everyone had to shower and get dressed and ready for church. We had two nice services at Union and Concord. After that, we went home and changed, grabbed our stuff and headed to Grammy and Poppa's house. The kids were so excited and couldn't wait to open presents . . .they kept checking to see if they could find ones with their name on it.

After a yummy lunch, it was finally time to open presents!!

We played lots with all our new toys and then Lucy and Poppa put together her new US states puzzle.

Day 24

Whew! What a day!! We started off early this morning, baking cookies for Santa.

After we baked our cookies and then Daddy helped Lucy with the icing.

Grammy, Poppa, and Mamaw came over and stayed with the kids while Michael and I went to church to do Communion. When we got home it was time to do a little cleaning up around the house so we would be ready for Santa to come. I also snapped a few pictures of the kids in their cute Christmas shirts.

His facial expression goes so well with his shirt!!!

Here's Charlie's "nice" face!

We also got to see Charlie's "naughty" face a little later! He "accidentally" started opening one of his presents. . . .

We went to the Christmas Eve service at Lewisville Methodist. This is all I ever want for Christmas - a chance to sit like a normal family, all together in a church service. It's such a crazy, chaotic experience with these three, but I look forward to it so much. This year, I was surrounded by sweet little voices, singing along with the Christmas carols and it was just the most precious thing!

The whole service, Charlie and Alex kept asking when it would be time to light the candles!

He loves his candle - he is just very serious about it! :)

I took this right as Michael blew Lucy's candle out!

When we were finished with church, we came home to have dinner. Michael and I also decided that we should go ahead and let the kids give each other the gifts they got for each other. Normally, I would make them wait until Christmas day, but since tomorrow morning promises to be a little hectic with our church schedule, we went ahead and did it this evening.

The kids were SO sweet with each other as they opened their presents. They seemed just as excited to see their sibling open the present that they got for them as they were to open their own presents!

I was so touched by how appreciative they were of the presents they got. All throughout the rest of the evening, they would thank each other (unprompted!) for their presents and kept saying how much they loved what they got. Moments like these where they are so loving to each other just melt my heart!

After dinner and a little playtime, we had bath and story and then bed time. I tried to snap a picture in Christmas PJs, but this was the best I could do!

Lucy set out cookies and milk for Santa so that he would make sure to stop here!

And as you can see, he sure did! I hope everyone will be excited with what they see in the morning! 

THe kids will have a little playtime in the morning and we'll have breakfast with bacon (requested by Alex) and sausage (requested by Charlie) and then it's off to our two churches! Merry Christmas, everyone!