What a Crazy Flurry of Activity!!

I feel like the last month has just been a fast forward button through time. Rushing from one activity to the next and making sure that I have everything that we all need to get from point A to B. Craziness . . . it was worth every 10pm trip to Wal-mart to hear the kids on Christmas morning.

Santa left a trail of tinsel from the chimney to both of the kids' bedrooms. Grace woke up first - at a respectable 7am - and came running into Caden's room. (I had been sleeping in there with him because he has had a horrendous cough that has kept him awake from about 1-3am for several nights) "Santa left Caden a green bike and I have a whole bunch of stuff too!! And he left sparkles all over our house!!"

It's the best to experience this all through their innocent little eyes. I had to go in and wake Caden up so that we could open presents at our house. They were opening so quickly that I had a hard time figuring out what was from whom. It was all about tearing into the package, glancing at it, and moving on to the next one. After we opened everything at our house, we went to my mom and dad's house next.

My brother Tom and his family came down from Duluth, MN. Dylan is 19, Matthew turns 17 on the 31st, and Cassie is 15. It was so great having everyone here for the holidays. Ann also came on the 23rd and stayed until the 28th so she was here for all the festivities as well. My kids scored big at my parent's house. The kids (including Chris) all got a Wii for Christmas. My dad lucked out and was able to get one for us and one for my brother Mike and his family. Chris stayed up until 2:30am the other night playing and I believe he has as many games of his own as the kids have :) They also each got their own Nintendo DS. I really was worried that Caden was too little for it, but he is loving it. We had avoided the whole video game scene until now with the kids, but this was an electronic Christmas :)

The day after Christmas my mom hired a photographer to come to my house and take family pictures. He's supposed to be getting us all a disk, so I will post them when I have them so that you can see how big all the kids are. These last few days have been a lot of fun hanging out with everyone at my parent's house and not having anything to do or anywhere to go that we didn't want to. My brother Tom and his family leave tomorrow morning. It's going to be sad to see them go! My brother Mike and his family met my sister in law's family up at their house in Gunnison, CO. the day after Christmas. We had an invitation to come and join them, but we decided to enjoy this week off and take some time to just stop and relax rather than heading out of town again. Can't wait to hear about all of your holidays!