Holy Guacamole. We're in the middle of our Christmas celebrations and I'm a little tired! This week was more than a little hectic, but we made it through in one piece and I'm looking forward to a whole week off next week. I know that I'll have the kids and probably be organizing the numerous new toys, but at least I don't have to be on a schedule and we can try and sleep in.
Charlie had her little Christmas program at her preschool this week. You can see the entire program below. She did not enjoy it and it's basically watching her stare you down for 15 minutes. We did enjoy a really nice lunch together afterwards and we are so blessed to have found this daycare 6 years ago with Luke.
Wednesday night, we met Dillon's mom and step dad in Johnson City and dropped off Luke to spend a few days of his Christmas break with them! We ate at a great restaurant there and then headed back down the mountain, sans one Lucas. Thursday night was Dillon's work's Christmas dinner and my mom and dad offered to watch Charlie that night so we could have a date night out to the dinner! They enjoyed some time with little Charlie and Dillon and I got to eat a dinner without kids crawling all over us!
Work was more than a little nuts for both me and Dillon this week and while we had both planned to take off on Friday, I had so much to get done that I went ahead and worked the first of that morning. Dillon picked up Charlie and we rushed to get everything done to head up to Virginia for Christmas with Dillon's family. It was a rainy, nasty drive, but once we got up there we really enjoyed spending time with everyone. We all enjoyed spending time together and laughed a lot and enjoyed staying up talking about everything. We were going to stay a little longer today, but it was still blustery and even snowy so we thought it might be best to come on back home. There was quite a bit of snow coming over the mountain, but the roads were clear so we were lucky. We're now gearing up for Christmas here in Asheville. Cookie baking tomorrow, Christmas Eve on Monday and Christmas spectacular on Tuesday! We're all excited to see what's coming and I'm looking forward to a nap on Tuesday afternoon.
Yeah... nope.
My sweet mama was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis this week, which has been a real bummer. We were hoping that there would be a way to get this cough gone, but it looks like she may have it for a long time. It's a bummer that she has a chronic disease, but I am thankful for a diagnoses so we can start to see if there can be some relief to help her feel better!
She wanted to stay and then she wanted to go and then she just had a meltdown about everything. I just love this age.
This is what it looks like when you go to bed at 1:30 and your kids wake you up at 6:30.
Dillon's ready to be a barista!
When we went to see Kansas a month or so ago, Dillon and Russ got shirts. Debbie and I skipped them because they were kind of expensive. Russ surprised us each with concert shirts from that night!
LEGOS! This kept him entertained forever. Which is good (he has two BIG sets under the tree this year!)
Today we celebrated sweet Charlotte. I can't believe she is 2, but we've had such a good day with our family! Dillon's mom, dad and step dad all came down to celebrate and Charlie received alllll kinds of good gifts. Add that into the cool stuff that Cory and Lindsay sent for the kids' Christmas and we were inundated with gifts today! Luke also has been pestering/begging us to let him open a gift on Charlie's birthday and I was ok with that. He opened up a surprise gift and found that he received alllll of the Harry Potter movies on blu-ray. We're currently watching the 2nd movie!
This week has been a little more than precarious. We did receive all that snow last weekend which closed down all of our local schools until Wednesday (daycare was even closed until Tuesday and they NEVER close). Dillon and I stayed home on Monday, but Tuesday we had to get back to work so Luke and Charlie got to spend some good time with my mom and dad. That also meant that we all shared germs and spent a good portion of the week incredibly sick. This particular cold came with a fever, bad cough and just feeling miserable in general. Luke's school was on a 3 hour delay on Thursday and my mom and dad were going to drop him off, but he had a mild fever and still was coughing terribly. Since he would only be at school for a few hours, I decided to leave him at home. Only when I texted the teacher, she told me that because he had a fever (no matter how mild) he couldn't come back to school until Monday. Sooooo Friday he was off too and he got to travel with me to deliver gifts to some of the offices I work with. When he goes back on Monday, he has a field trip and then it's the day before Christmas break so this week is going to be all out of whack, too. Wednesday he'll go spend a few days with Grammy & Russ and we'll go visit and celebrate Christmas with Dillon's family next weekend!!
Today's party was especially nice. I tried to make some good fruits and veggies and Charlie was blessed with some of her favorite things as gifts. We got her a new little Kindle to watch Elmo and an art easel with a chalkboard and a big roll of paper! Her and Luke were entertained for a long time drawing today so I think that was a good investment! Pappaw Eddie got her a dancing Elmo, Grammy & Russ got her a set of musical instruments (which she loves!), a book and a cute outfit and Maw and Peepaw got her a huge toy horse that she loves to sit on and play with its hair!! All things that are her favorite. I will say that the clutter has already started. I think I'm going to have to learn that in December, I need to just clean really good at the beginning of the month and then just let it deteriorate until after Christmas. There's no reason for me to get my knickers in a twist about clutter and mess right now because it's only going to get worst with Christmas in 10 days. We still have Christmas with Dillon's family, my family and our own family to get through and the toys are going to be through the roof. Too bad Toys R Us went out of business because I'm pretty sure our families could have kept them from going bankrupt.
While I'm tired this evening, I've had such a good day. My baby girl is 2 which is hard to believe, but I love watching her grow. I love her personality and her sweet and sour disposition. We're in a good place.
