Merry Christmas to All!

Yes, I know Christmas was almost a week ago but this is my "All Things Christmas" catch-up post. Just like everyone, we have had a busy few weeks getting ready for and getting through the holidays. Despite that, I feel like we actually achieved a really nice balance this year. We were never too rushed and we had time to enjoy each of our Christmas celebrations.

The festivities started the week before Christmas at Milo's preschool. They had a brunch with Santa where all the kids got to come to school in their PJs. The older kids were so excited when Santa walked in. In true Milo fashion, he just looked at Santa for a minute, took his present and then came back over to me.

A few days later we went to San Antonio to have Christmas with Sarah, Greg, all the boys, Dad and Lynn. Here is Sarah with the best Christmas present of the year.

We had a quick but fun trip where lots of presents for the kids were to be had and lots of food for the adults was to be eaten.

We missed seeing Mom for the holidays but she sent us the cutest, hand-painted Christmas decorations as gifts. All of our Christmas decorations at the house are either from Mom, Grandma Pat or Grandma Dottie. I always love unpacking them each year.

On the way back home we stopped at Whataburger. Is this seriously not the biggest cup you have ever seen? I upsized my order so I would have some fries to share with Milo and got this monster-size cup in the deal. A love of fries is one of the things that remained with me from being pregnant and Milo is totally on board with that shared love. Don't worry... we may have filled him full with the huge french-fry order but it is just iced tea in the cup. No soda for our little guy yet. Fried food vs. soda? We all have our little justifications don't we?

After a few more days of work, we all started our fabulously long Christmas weekend. It was wonderful! Mark had the whole week off but I was off from Tuesday afternoon on and I absolutely loved it. Wednesday was devoted to buying the last few Christmas presents for Mark and meeting my friend Maryann for lunch which is always a nice treat. Mark has never celebrated Christmas Eve but it has always been a major part of the holiday for my family. In honor of those memories, I made Mom's version of enchiladas (or as close as I could get) which we would always have when we were kids right before opening our presents. We put Milo to bed and spent the better part of the evening in our separate rooms wrapping all of our presents - our very own Christmas tradition. What else would you expect from two procrastinators?

We woke up Christmas morning, ate something and then got down to business. This first present was a must! Mark, Milo and I all love Guitar Here equally. Milo isn't playing quite yet but he loves to "rock out" with us.

And here Mark is demonstrating that he can even be excited about socks.

Hey, is there something in here for me?

What about in here?

We are not sure yet whether this is the best or worst present for Milo. There is no doubt at all that he loves it. They have one at his preschool and Sarah and Greg also have one. That is the potential problem. He loves it SO much that in the last few weeks he has started to become a little possessive over it. We think it started in San Antonio where, in hindsight, Brooks playing in the car and refusing to give it over to Milo on demand may have begun a weekend long feud on Milo's part. I am not sure Brooks knew there was a feud going on but Milo definitely did his part to keep it going by lashing out at Brooks every chance he got (literally). Unfortunately, his behavior continued at preschool a few days later whenever any of the little boys tried to get in "his" car. Mark and I are really hoping that having one of his own does not exacerbate the problem by really making him think the other cars are his too.

On another note, this present taught us a very valuable lesson - one we will not forget anytime soon. Putting together a fabulous Christmas present on Christmas morning with a screaming, inconsolable child next to you who just wants to play with their fabulous Christmas present is no fun and is not terribly conducive to quick assembly.

We did let Milo distract himself for awhile with the automatic screwdriver. I think Mark and I may have found our own little handy-man!

Milo and I literally stayed in our PJs all Christmas day. It was truly wonderful and quiet and relaxing. The following night we finally got over to see the light show at Frisco Square. It was crazy windy but we still had a great time. Milo was in awe of the lights. It was the perfect way to end a perfect holiday!

Since you have made it through what is probably the longest post of the year, I will leave you with a demonstration of Milo's "mad dancing skillz" at the light show. The wind blocks out some of the music but you will get the gist. I hope you all had a great holiday!