Sunday, December 27, 2009

An Eagle Mountain Christmas!

That title sounds like a cheesy TV special, but that's what we all started calling our Christmas this year when we were making plans. And the reason that we had to give it a corny name and make lots of plans was that we were ALL getting together at my sister, Marie's house out in Eagle Mountain. That's also why there are so many pictures. When you gather 22 people together in one house to have a huge Christmas Eve sleep-over with lots of holiday festivities, there's bound to be a lot of great pictures. Especially when 7 of those people (my oldest sister, Heather's family) live way out in Texas and we don't get to see them very often. We had a fabulous time! We had dinner, acted out the Nativity with the kids, sang carols, made sugar cookies for Santa, and let all the kids open the traditional Christmas Eve jammies, um I mean, one special present. Then we put the kids to bed full of anticipation for Santa to come. I was upstairs nursing Dex to sleep while all the kids were trying to go to bed. I heard them talking for only a minute or so before settling down. It was quiet for a few seconds and then I heard Oliver joyously exclaim, "Ollie B!" and then there was absolute silence. It was so funny! Then the adults got to wrap a few final presents, chat and catch up before heading off to bed. Unfortuantely, Oliver woke up right as we were all trying to go to bed. He wouldn't settle down and that woke Dex up. They were both crying and crying and in a house full of sleeping people, it was so terrible for me. My kind Mommy said that she'd come with me to take them for a car ride. We drove around for a while and Dexy fell asleep. But no lucky with Ollie. Although he did settle down. We went back to the house and finally at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke Brian up and had him put Oliver playpen in the basement, eventhough it is unfinished and therefore some what cold, and I put him down there to sleep. He only fussed a little and happily fell to sleep. He must just be use to basements! Everyone, but Ollie woke up at about 7 and we opened presents and had a joyous time! Ollie woke up much later. I took off his wet jammies, changed his diaper and let him open presents. He was kind of in a daze while he opened presents, but after we gave him breakfast and got him dressed in his new Christmas outfit, he realized the joy of lots of cousins, aunts and uncles, and new toys to play with. We had a wonderful Christmas. The kids especially loved have saber fights with the cool light sabers they got from Grandma. We came back to our place and brought Derek, Cristina and Jude with us that night so that our babies could all get a better night's sleep. And they did! They all slept great. Cristina and I went to Ikea (Ollie knows that place by name now) while the guys went to enjoy a day after Christmas movie. While we were there, Ollie crawled up on one of the cute, kid chairs at a table and was all ready for dinner. It was so cute! We went back out to Eagle Mountain this afternoon for dinner and one last night of family fun before everyone starts heading home. I agree with Marie's oldest son, Drew, when he said, "this is the best Christmas ever!"

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3 comments:

Cristina said...

I love it!!! Good thing you can make those collages! There was too much fun to just put on a picture or two. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Marie said...

I NEED ALL OF THESE PICTURES!!!! It was so much fun, wasn't it? I'm so glad everyone came and we all could enjoy each other!

Rob O said...

I agree with Drew!