Christmas Eve & early Christmas morning

Not a good week last week! Christian threw up throughout two nights starting Tuesday at 3 a.m. and still felt sick as of yesterday, I got the yuck on Friday (but at least I wasn't sick while having to care for a cranky two-year-old and doing a bazillion loads of laundry), and Tony got sick on Saturday. Faith seems to have escaped the wrath of this stomach virus, let's hope I don't jinx her now!!!! On to catching up my journal/blog:

We spent Christmas Eve at my mom & dad's and first enjoyed some amazing hors d'oeuvres (spinach dip, crab rounds, barbeque bacon wrapped chestnuts, etc.) and a wonderful dinner. Afterward, we did our anual nativity with Sarah's gorgeous homemade costumes.

Alaura was Mary at the beginning, and aparently either was pretending to be "great with child" or thought that the wrap style of the dress conveniently doubled as a baby sling. Celeste is on the far left being an ever-vigilant shepherd.

At this point, Faith was an angel.

When it was time for the Wise Men to show, everyone switched costumes and Faith then got the coveted role of Mary.

Alaura's showing her angelic side & Noah looks pretty pleased with himself as a Wise Man here. Grandpa Quinn was even up to coming which was a really neat surprise.

Christian was absent from these festivities as he was sound asleep during the whole thing!

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A few days before when I teasingly asked Eric what he was going to do for the (non-existant) talent portion of the night, he said he didn't have anything planned, but my mom then proceeded to talk him into breaking out his magic tricks from back in the day. It's been a long while since he'd done them, but you couldn't even tell--they were awesome!! He first astounded us with his amazing card tricks

and then some other magic (he's doing a floating hankie trick here). The kids really enjoyed the show, too.

When we got home, the kids got to open one present.

Surprise!!! Jammies!!! Actually, after hugging them so cute, Christian tossed his aside and grumbled, "Clothes," obviously dissappointed. It's so hard to wait for Christmas day with all of the anticipation of new toys!

The kids tossed reindeer food out on the grass to prepare for their visit. Thank you to the Hustons and Parkinsons for the fun gift of it. Having two bags worked out perfectly for us!!!

When Faith set out the cookies and milk, Christian seemed really interested. He helped me tuck Faith in and then started saying "Ho-ho come, sky." I said, "Yep, Santa's going to come in the sky tonight!" He kept saying, "NO! Ho-ho come, sky!!!" I finally came the the realization that what he was actually saying was, "Ho-ho come, scary!" Christian was my two-year-old who was excited to sit on Santa's lap and everything! I guess seeing those snacks set out made it sink in that some big guy with crazy clothes and a bushy beard was coming into our house and around him as he slept, and it was just too much for him! He absolutely wouldn't go to sleep in his crib, so I let him fall asleep in our bed. The first time I tried to move him back to his crib, he was so jumpy that he woke up screaming in terror, "Ho-ho here?!!!"

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The next morning Faith woke up at five or so and finally Tony got up with her. He let her look in her stocking while he made us all a bacon and egg breakfast! When Christian woke up, all fear was forgotten when he saw what Santa had brought. He got this awesome, gigantic train table!

Then he dug every last thing out of his stocking.

The kids then opened thier gifts from us.

Here is Faith with her hot pink MP3 player from Santa. Luckily, Santa must have known early on that she wanted this color even though she forgot to tell him, because when we were looking for a similar one to give Tammy, we found that they were sold out all across the United States!

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We didn't forget the pets, either!

It was a wonderful Christmas morning . . . but that was just the beginning of our day!!!!