Santa needs a vacation.

Sometimes I think I am Wonder-Woman but with four wee ones, two dogs (one being a puppy) & a husband that is swamped at work, I am quickly reminded that I am not. I am so exhausted it's not even funny. We had a fabulous Christmas & I hope you & your family did also. ☺

Side note - for years I celebrated Christmas without knowing the reason for the season. It was just Christmas. It was not CHRISTmas. At age 41, I am still quite angry & irritated w/ my parents because personally I find it unexcusable, as well as sad, that they cared none to teach myself & my siblings about Christ. And that I didn't know the truth until later in life. I hope some day my children realize how blessed they are that they are being raised knowing the truth, knowing the true reason for Christmas. I do believe teaching our children about Christ is the most amazing & meaningful gift we could ever give them. Without Christ there would be no Christmas.

Now then. In no particular order -

Divorce was mentioned briefly when I discovered my husband still working @ 1:00 a.m. Monday & we still had so much to do before his family arrived Wednesday. He kicked it into high gear though - how he accomplishes so much on so little sleep is beyond me. The only little mishap he had was when I discovered he had cleaned the wooden toilet seat with the wrong cleaner. Innocently he ruined it - it ended up all streaked & looking dirty when in actuality it was sparkling clean. The bad thing is I didn't discover it until after everyone left on Wednesday evening. I was horrified as they all might have thought the toilet seat was dirty. Ack!

Mercedes decided to have a bad sleeping night Tuesday. At 1:45 a.m. Wednesday I finally pulled out the chocolate donuts & sat there wondering how in the world I was going to get everything finished in time for family the next day, when I had had little to no sleep. When she got up Wednesday morning I discovered the culprit - she had a severe cold. Obviously when she laid down she got stopped up therefore resulting in no sleep. For either of us. I felt so bad for her & she hates having her nose wiped. Poor baby.

However, Mercedes did decide to take some steps alone! On Saturday the 20th, my sil & I caught her taking two steps without assistance. Christmas Eve my bil counted as she took three! Everyone was there & saw it so we all did the clapping & "yay"ing. She couldn't have cared less. LOL ☺ She may be our earliest walker yet. Audi walked @ 12 1/2 months, so we'll see.

Piper was a big hit & bonded quite well with my nephew who's 14. She got plenty of attention that day which made us both happy as I didn't really want to crate her all day. :)

Our dinner for Wednesday was supposed to be Mexican & Tamales. Did you know Monday was a Mexican Holiday? We didn't either. LOL We ended up with pizza & salad (& tons of other goodies) & actually it worked out perfectly.

I drank me some alcohol on Christmas Eve. Oh yes I did. :) In the past, I have tried to drink wine like all the big folks (quietly I was cringing at all the wine/beer/alcohol being brought into my home - typically I do not allow alcohol in my house. That said, husband's family members are not alcoholics, they social drink at family gatherings. Felt the need to point that out. LOL). I'd love to look all sophisticated even though I'm not. But...yuck. I attempted it again Wednesday & I thought I was going to throw up. :) Wine ain't for me. So I drank some hard liquor (haha) & thoroughly enjoyed it. LOL After 1 1/2 I realized I'm just too old to drink. Not to mention, uninterested. ☺

It dawned on me that this is about the 8th year I have not celebrated Thanksgiving or Christmas with any of my family. (Except for the Christmas in 2006 that we brought my dad back from the Valley.) It's really beginning to wear on me. I don't see my family often but for Thanksgiving or Christmas every now & then - come on now. Is that asking too much? Honestly, it breaks my heart for my children. I feel so bad for them. I know they don't understand & I'm thankful they don't question why we always see Daddy's family & never mine. I know a lot of people become depressed during the Holidays & I can see how that can happen. It's just sad.

Why is it so much easier to shop for girls than boys? I totally overbought for Jaguar so her birthday gifts are taken care of. Yay for me. Ü Now I need to take care of Audi & Mercedes' birthday gifts & we'll be on our way for birthday celebrations next week. Thank you God for my babies, but couldn't you have spaced their birthdays out just a bit? Heehee. ☺

Pink feather boas are so cute! Jags hated it. Piper loved it. My carpet looks (looked) as if we killed & cleaned our own Christmas dinner. Boa gone. Below is a Christmas gift I made all three. I stole the idea from Gayle. The kids love it! The sand is actually cornmeal. I don't do sand. Ha!☺ The marbles make me nervous w/ Mercedes so unfortunately this has to be supervised digging.

I'm so thankful I did Christmas shopping on Black Friday! That helped tremendously but next year I need to do even more tweaking. I do way too much at the very last minute. Like Halloween, new plan next year. :)

I was so tired Christmas morning, no one got dressed (something that is not allowed here unless one is sick). No cute, Christmasy clothes. No bows. No nothing. No one minded. :) My husband even cooked an entire Christmas dinner without any help from me. Not that I'm a great cook, but that's a lot of work for one person. It was awesome & I'm so grateful for my husband. :)

Now I'm off to bowl with him on the Wii. He challenged me, so it's on. ☺ I'll be the first one to throw the hand thingy thru our tv. Just wait. It's gonna happen.

Merry Christmas! xoxo