It has been so busy around here, as I'm sure it has been for most everyone. I posted pictures from Christmas and Alex's birthday. We had a very nice Christmas. There is so much joy watching the kids open their gifts from Santa, I'm not sure who loves it more, Ed and I or the kids! They got lots of nice toys from Santa and were very happy Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we went to Ed's extended family's Christmas. There is always a ton of food and kids to play with. We headed home, and had no trouble putting the kids to bed that night.
On Christmas night, we went to my mom's family's Christmas. That, too, is a big family with lots of great-grandchildren that are the same ages as my kids. We ate a lot and visited a lot. It is so nice to have our families close by to share the holidays with. It is also nice to have large extended families so that our kids can experience the large gatherings. Ed's side of the family is getting pretty big (almost 30 people), but my side is still pretty small (just 16), so our kids don't have the same experiences I did--gatherings with 50+ people at every holiday.
The weekend after Christmas, we headed up to Fergus Falls in the icy weather to spend the weekend with the Holens. It was, also, a lot of fun. There are a ton of boys in that family, so it gets a little rowdy, but Doug and Kim have a nice big farmhouse and a lot of outdoor space for the boys to burn off that energy!
We took our two nieces home with us, who are 14 and 12 and they spent Sunday-Thursday with us. It was fun having them around, and they were a lot of help with the house and with the kids. It was nice to be able to go out and run errands by myself, since the girls watched the kids for me. On New Year's Eve, Doug and Kim came down and spent the night with us. We had a lot of fun. Our collective 9 (yes, 9) kids all made it well past midnight, and we finally put them to bed around 1 am.
We also celebrated Alex's 9th birthday on the 30th. He had a great birthday, according to him. I took the day off (I only worked M and F last week), and I took down the Christmas decorations while the kids took it easy at home. We had cake and presents, and Alex was very excited to have received Guitar Hero III. I was excited, too, and have since been seeing green, red, and yellow notes coming at me in my sleep. For Christmas, Alex also received SingStar for the Play Station, so between our rockin' guitar game and our singing game, we will have a family of rock stars in the near future :-) It is hard for me to believe that Alex is already nine. It doesn't seem like that long ago when Ed and I were not parents. And I can remember vividly the first few days after Alex was born. How can it have already been nine years? I hope the next nine years don't fly by as fast as the first nine did, because then Alex will be 18, and will be an "adult"--I know I sure thought I was an adult at 18, but really, it takes a few years after 18 to really grow into an adult.
I am looking forward to life settling down a bit. The holidays and the kids' birthdays are a lot of fun, but it sure gets to be a lot of activity. I have the house almost all clean, so tomorrow, I can sit back and watch the Vikings win (fingers crossed), and finish reading my book. Then, it's back to the grind, for which I am actually a bit excited.
Hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Christmas and New Year!
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