Our Family Tales: Christmas

We spent Christmas weekend and Christmas with my parents and sisters at my sister Katie's house in Orlando(about 50 minutes away). On Saturday night, we all went out to eat at Smokey Bones(one of Rob's restaurants) and I went shopping with my sisters. I was sick Christmas Eve and Christmas so I spent most of the time laying on the couch watching the festivities. On Christmas Eve, the Lyons family(my sister Katie)led us in a their annual Nativity play and Christmas program. Everyone dressed up as their part except for the babies and me. I was the Narrator from the couch. Rob was a shepherd and Jack was a wise man. After the Nativity play, Jeff played Christmas songs on the trumpet(the kids tried too) and the kids sang Christmas songs. Jack spread out his reindeer food(oatmeal and glitter)that he made in preschool in Katie's backyard. The kids all went to bed pretty early and I was soooo happy I had finished all my wrapping the week before especially since I was sick. After the kids were in bed, we all played games which we did every night we were there-our favorites are imaginiff, apples to apples, whoonu, loaded questions, and compatibility- and snacked on the desserts I made for the weekend-Ooey Gooey, chocolate muffins, and mint brownies.

The boys fighting over their turn with the trumpet

Jack the wise man

On Christmas Day, we all slept in till way past 9(I think it was closer to 10). Opening presents with 5 kids under 7(4 under 4) was a bit chaotic. We had to take a lot of breaks for food, opening packaging, setting up toys, etc, etc... We tried to just get the kids presents open first to keep their interest. When the babies took naps, we opened the rest of the adult presents. Then, Callie had more presents to open when she woke up so we officially did not get done opening presents until late afternoon about 4. Jack loved his new Fisher Price digital camera from Grandma and Grandpa and took pictures of everything. The quality is not too good at all but the camera is pretty indestructable and now he can't complain about not being able to play with our camera. He also was excited about his big stack of paper he got too (He loves paper!) and his Callie size dinosaur. Callie loved her new doll that talks and eats from Grandma and Grandpa. On Tuesday, Rob and Jeff played golf and Katie and I went shopping and went to see "Holiday" which was a cute movie. Grandma and Grandpa watched all the kids!