This has been the snowiest Christmas I can remember. Of course my long term memory isn't all that good. It is certainly snowier than any that Lance had as a kid- growing up in LA! Christmas Eve we spent at my mom's house. This has been our tradition for many years. Charlie's family came over too. My mom was not feeling well at all but was a trooper through all the noise and chaos. We made pizzas and then read the Christmas story from Luke 2. JJ and Hannah played the parts of Joseph and Mary. Then Charlie read our family Christmas story - A Christmas Dress for Ellen. The Ellen in the story is my aunt. We had made it a tradition to read this story on Christmas Eve long before President Monson retold it and the popular children's book came out. I have many memories of my mom reading this story as my dad openly wept. He didn't have any memories of that particular Christmas but of many similar ones later on in childhood. I think this year the story made more sense to JJ and Hannah. They are old enough now to realize a little bit - how blessed our family really is and that not everyone has what we have. We are certainly not wealthy by any means but we do have what we need as far as basic necessities and then some. After the story time was over we opened a few presents. The hit as far as the kids were concerned was Chloe's gift to Dan. A set of nerf guns! Before long nerf bullets were flying everywhere. We found one of them in our stuff later after we got home!
Christmas Day was bitter sweet. Lance went to pick up my mom first thing in the morning so she could see the kids open thier presents. She was not feeling well by the time he got there and decided not to come after all. Lance got back and the kids were disappointed not to see Grandma. They were excited to open thier presents though so that is what they did and had a great time at it! Our main gift was the Wii. The kids have been playing it pretty much non stop since we got it hooked up. Hannah had asked for a microphone so she got Disney Sing It for the Wii which came with a microphone. But the game that really is the funnest for all of us to play (except for Asher) is the Lego Star Wars Wii game. It is addicting! I am the first to proclaim that I am not a gamer in any sense of the word - not even good at card or board games! But I have enjoyed the few times I got to play the Lego Star Wars and the Sing it games. Yesterday I came down with some kind of stomach flu and spent the entire day in bed or in the bathroom. Today I am a little better but still feeling a bit weak and blah so I missed out on the Madigan family get to gether today. I didn't think it would be nice to share this with the family if I am still contagious. Hannah's birthday is coming up on Monday and I am totally stumped on what to do for a party. I have had her presents for about a month now but I just can't figure out something fun and somewhat inexpensive to do for her party. I really don't want to have it here at our house if I can find somewhere else to do it. Ideas are alway welcome!