Our Family Christmas Day

Our family Christmas day was fun but chaotic. "Uncle" Jeremy was building a shelf. Aunt Sissy was cooking a feast. And Madison was playing with Jayden and Isiah. Nana helped out where she could but Sissy INSISTED on doing it all. She claims she likes it. But I don't buy it LOL. Here are some pics from the day:

Aunt Sissy (or Grammie depending on who you are) with Jayden. Aren't they sweet??


Gee Madison posing? I am shocked!

This was a really good shot of my grandma (Pepaw, Grandma, whatever you call her :) )

The kids playing...


Hard at work. Sissy cooking. Nana Helping. Jeremy building a shelf.



And oh what a dinner we had!! Ham AND Roast Beef. Mac N Cheese, potatoes, macaroni salad, cole slaw, corn, beans, rolls, ummm probably more I am forgetting.



And of course we had PRESENTS. For the first time Judi, Jenni, and Moose had THE gift this year. Poor little Jayden wanted to play with his Piston Cup 500 set soooo bad. And mean ole daddy wouldn't let him. He's lucky "Aunt" jenni didn't set it up for him overnight :)






Look how bad he wants to play with it??? Can you resist that adorable little face??? It stayed that way the entire time they were there. Poor poor Jayden.


Poor Poor Jayden :(

Our LOOOOOOOOOOONG Trip to NC

Well our trip down was extremely long and very eventful! About 2 hours into the trip we hit ice. Not unusual in Michigan. We slowed down and decided to move along because we would pass it.

NOT.

Turns out an ice storm hit northern indiana, southern michigan and northern illinois.

By the time we got to South Bend Indiana we were on a solid sheet of ice. Driving at around 10 mph because of course we were sliding all over the place. Finally my brother decided to take an exit.

Not the best idea. We got stuck. And there we sat for 3 hours. Along with everyone else. Someone else thought they were past the problem and went up the exit sliding and hit another car. Which brought the cops. Which he slid up the road. Notice his position in the below photo? It wasn't intentional.

We almost got hit by several people, including a snow plow. Eventually we got up the exit, got some breakfast and decided to move along.

Past South Bend we couldn't get anywhere. They had all roads closed.

We gave up (me very resistantly) and got a hotel. So our 14-16 hr trip took like 2 1/2 days.

Here are a couple of pics from our being stuck.

I will say the hotel was AWESOME. It had the MOST comfortable beds I've ever been in. I'd love to go back and sleep there again. Maybe under better circumstances. LOL

Our Small Family Christmas

I have to say our small family Christmas was nice. My brother arrived and we had a big ham dinner with all the fixins. Then it was time to do gifts!

First I have to share my gift from Madison. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I needed it sooooo bad. I was using a broken chair that I fell out of daily. So her dad took her shopping for me, nana and uncle moose and this is what I got:

Then here are some of Madison opening gifts:





Had to get a picture of the Barbie while she STILL had clothes on. This is proof that the dolls ARE dressed when they enter my house LOL
And I took a big chance on Madison's gift. I wasn't sure what to get her and I thought she would really like a piano keyboard. But I wasn't positive. Well looks like it was a success!
Nana opening her gifts!



And of course Sophie had a present. Bear and Sebastian were elsewhere and we couldn't get them in to open gifts. But Sophie really enjoyed hers! (they each got bags of treats!)

And as always uncle Moose had to make a big production of opening gifts. Or maybe that's for the camera?? LOL. But it was funny because Madison packed his gift (a watch) in a large box and then threw a bunch of junk in the box. So he had to dig through all the trash to find his present. And in true Moose fashion there was a commentary along with the unpacking (example..he pulls out a straw...he says Are you trying to say I suck?)





And dad opening his gifts. Well sort of. One of dads still needs to be ordered. Oops. Mom will get right on that.

And I didn't take pictures of Madison murdering us at Scene It or any of that. But I did get pics of her trying out some of her other gifts:

Prepare yourself

For picture OVERLOAD. I am home. And I have pics to post from our small family christmas with my mom, brother, madison, me and Brian. Then I have a TON of pics from our trip to NC.

So prepare to be bombarded with photos.

Christmas Morning Madison Style

Well as she usually does...she woke up early. Thank heavens Santa had come. Barely. She woke at 1 am. She was so excited. And you can tell she is used to me because she would open a present and hold it up and smile for the camera :)

I will say she was slightly disappointed that Santa didn't bring her the Season 1 Hannah Montana DVD. She is "SURE" its because he knew someone else was getting it for her. That could be a problem.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me. And I will be away for a bit. We are able to go home after all. So we will be spending the next week in NC with our family!!! I will try and take lots of pics for you guys.

So the question of the day...What did Madison get?? Well she got a kids digital camcorder, a scooter, Disney Channel Scene-It, iCarly charades, a memory card for her camcorder, 2 new outfits, a webkinz lil kinz yorkie, and a stocking full of lip gloss and perfume and lotion.

Merry Christmas everyone. Thank you for being part of my life :)

Here are some pics from our "Christmas Morning".

Oh Christmas Tree....charlie brown style

Charlie Brown has NOTHING on us! Toy sales have kept me hopping ( I think I've mentioned that before??). So we didn't get the basement finished. Which means we couldn't move my inventory downstairs. Which also means we couldn't move my mom to Madison's old room and move my computer to my room. Which culminates in how we couldn't move the loveseat so that we could put up my MONSTER of a Christmas tree. I LOVE my Christmas tree. It is very special. And not just because I stood outside Kmart in Wisconsin in the bitter cold at 4 am to get it for $30. LOL. But more because its huge. And my wide assortment of weird ornaments represent something in my life. Many are from Madison's first few Christmases.

But alas we had no room for the beast. So we had to improvise. This means we dug out my moms little 4 ft white tree. Now it looks just pitiful in our living room LOL. But Madison wanted a tree and a tree she would get. It's not her fault I've eat, breathed and slept Ebay for weeks.

So tonight we pulled out the decorations and we got the tree up. Though "up" seems a bit of a stretch.

So here are pics of our tree. Noone can say we didn't do Christmas. I'm just waiting for snoopy to pop out :)

Oh and the sweetest thing. Madison had bought some gifts at her school santa shop. She has kept them hidden for weeks. As soon as the tree was up she ran in her room and came out with the gifts. They are now under our little tree. Guess I need to get her some gifts under there huh?