The Christmas Post

For Christmas this year, we went down to Bay City to my parents' house. Like our Thanksgiving trip to Midland, we decided to make it a whirlwind trip. Clint has been REALLY busy lately and could only get time off for the 24th-26th.

We were planning on leaving Tuesday night as soon as he got home from work, but that didn't happen until 11:00 p.m.! Even though the trip to Bay City takes 5.5 hours, we decided to go for it. My brother Chase and his family live in Houston so we thought we'd stop at his house for the night to break up the trip. Bad idea!

The kids woke up just as we were pulling up to his house at 3:45 a.m. and didn't want to go back to sleep. Clint got a small catnap between 4:00 and 7:00 while I tried to keep the kids quiet in the other room. After an hour or so, Lyndon finally tuckered out, but Charlotte screamed for 2 hours straight. Even though we didn't get much sleep, we were ready to get on the road again by 10:30.

My parents have had Christmas by themselves for the last 2 years, so they were very excited to have all of their kids, their kids' spouses, and their grandkids all under the same roof for Christmas. My Mom's parents were there as well on Christmas Eve. We had a lot of fun.

In my family, on Christmas Eve, we each open the gift we received from our siblings. Clint and I wanted to start a tradition of opening up Christmas jammies on Christams eve, so we opened those too. Also, since my grandparents were going to be in Houston for Christmas, the kids also opened their gifts too. Lyndon, of course, wanted to open all of the presents under the tree. Charlotte didn't really understand what was going on.

I had made some nativity puppets to use for a nativity play, so we had a puppet show while my Dad read the Christmas story.

On Christmas morning we woke to find that Santa had filled the kids stockings with all sorts of goodies. We opened too many gifts and ate some breakfast. We than had grilled shrimp and ribs for lunch/dinner... mmm! It was a good day; we enjoyed ourselves. It was certainly worth the trip down to see everyone together again.


Nana & Grandad gave Lyndon and Charlotte (among other things) some slippers. They had them on tonight, so I took some pictures--Bear slippers for the boy who is grumpy when tired and Skunk slippers for out little stinker. Charlotte has a hard time walking in them, but Lyndon loves them and can't wait until he can wear them to the Primary PJ Party this Saturday.






Here's a picture of everyone... minus Clint (the photographer).

My Dad had this blanket made for my Mom from a picture we took a couple of months ago. It turned out really nice.One of Lyndon's favorite presents was from my parents, again. They gave him a weed-whacker with goggles that are too small. He looks kinda goofy in this picture because he is trying hard not to smile.
This is a clip from Christmas Eve: