We kicked off Christmas the weekend prior by going to my Grandfather's house to celebrate with the whole family. This is about the only picture we captured there of all the great-grandchildren (that were present ... some were missing for various reasons).
I spent the whole next week getting gifts ready and wrapped. And spent all of W's waking moments explaining that he CANNOT open the presents under the tree.
I (and also my Mom) also spent that week trying to get a picture of W in front of our tree. Mom ended up getting some that I just LOVE ... but they were in front of her tree (dinosaur shirt ones). Guess there is always next year?
The weekend before Christmas was spent in Tennessee with Ben's family. After a long, stressful battle with traffic we arrived on Friday evening. We spent the weekend eating, unwrapping gifts and having a really great time with both of Ben's sets of Aunts/Uncles.
Wyatt also got a fun new toy from Lolly and Pops, which he just loved.
We tried and tried to do a family picture before Church. I had the camera setup great in the first set, but W didn't want to cooperate. Sooooo ... when he finally did I had re-positioned the camera and I ended up with a wonky camera setup and I just had to crop this the best I could.
We came home late that afternoon and I scurried to get myself ready for work the next day and for Christmas Eve. Ben ended up not working on CE so he stayed home with Wyatt and took him to a special Waffle House breakfast and met me at Mom and Dad's house later in the afternoon. Despite the coldish-wet weather Ellie and Wyatt loved playing outside while Dad and Ben grilled.
We had a wonderful beef tenderloin dinner followed up with more gifts. We were lucky to have Grand Meme join us this year for Christmas Eve ... she enjoyed seeing all the kids even if they were wild wild wild!
Kimmie and I decided to bathe the kids and get them in their jammies before leaving to go home so that we could just transfer them if they fell asleep in the car. Great plan, but the reality is none of them fell asleep on the way home .... they were still on a present high!!
After we got home and got Wyatt to bed, Santa Claus made his visit to our house. Couple things I learned about Santa & Mrs. Claus:
1) he is a perfectionist (see ... putting train tracks together until 1:30 am) and
2) she overshops.
Wyatt was thrilled with all of his gifts on Christmas morning!
We had planned to go up to the Farm for the afternoon, but since I was on the verge of getting sick, we were all exhausted, and Ben had to leave town the next morning we ended up staying home. It was a little sad not seeing my extended family but this was what we really needed. Wyatt got to cruise the neighborhood in his new tractor from Meme and Papa. (And for the record, this wasn't a case of dueling grandparents .... Wyatt loves fire trucks and 'hook up' trucks so they had the same idea with just a different twist.) Wyatt will be cruising to neighborhood gatherings in style this year ....
And with that, Christmas is over. Whew!
