Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We did. There was alot of running around, as usual, but I wouldn't have it any other way. If you live in our house, you learn to find really good hiding places (which means not hiding anything in our house) and this isn't from the kids. Well, the younger kids anyway. I am on a mission every Christmas to hide presents from ..........Rusty. My biggest kid of all. This is the man who unwrapped his Mom's birthday present from us one year because he thought it was something I had bought for him. When he was a little boy he stayed home sick from school one day, snooped, found something for him, unwrapped it and was wearing it when his Mom got home. He hasn't changed much, he's just gotten sneakier about it. He also loves to get up extremely early and drag the kids out of bed to open presents. He is also the man that gets so excited about what he has bought for me that he wants to give it to me before Christmas even gets here and he's that way about birthdays also. It's not all about what he's getting, he loves to give also. He has a really big heart. And I am saying that after he pulled me out of bed at 2 am on Christmas morning. He's 38 remember and he gets just as excited now as did as a kid. So anyway, we were up at 2 am and at my parents by 5:15. We opened presents there, had a little breakfast, loaded the car and headed back to the house by 9. We unloaded at our house, reloaded the car and headed to Rusty's mom's house to have Christmas again. Rusty's mom makes Christmas breakfast for all of us. There was 20 of us at her house. It's crowded but alot of fun. We ate and ate and ate and then it was time for presents. The kids open their presents first, youngest to oldest, and then they take their stuff to another room to go through again and the adults all take turns opening our presents. It's takes about 2 hours for all of the gifts to be opened. We stayed and visited there for a while and the we loaded back up again and headed home. Rusty had been sick all day, didn't eat anything, so I dropped him off at home so he could go to bed and then Blake, Ashleigh and I went back to my parents to eat dinner. Wayne had gone to his Dad's earlier in the day to spend a couple days with him. It was an extremely busy day and like I said I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have anywhere to go on Christmas.
The kids got way too much stuff and so did the adults. Blake asked for some different kinds of things this year. He's only 8 but he really didn't ask for toys. He wanted a globe, some maps ( he has loved to look at maps as far back as I can remember. We have pictures of him when we went to Florida looking at maps with my Dad and he was only 4), arts and crafts and things like that. Steven got him a telescope and he loved that. We have taken it out on the deck but it has been too cloudy to use it yet. Santa brought him a Nintendo Wii. I wonder if you can throw out your back and shoulder bowling on that thing. I love it. It has been so much fun. In our house Christmas is the gun holiday so Rusty and Wayne both got new guns. Ashleigh asked for clothes, clothes and more clothes. Rusty said that is a boring gift but I completely and totally understand, you can never have too many clothes, shoes or purses. I love purses.
We had a wonderful Christmas, I think everyone is finally healthy, and we have all been very blessed to be able to be together. I look for the coming year to be much better than this past year, it was really a hard year.
God bless and good night.
Bridget

Welcome to our home

My talking snowman greets you as you come up the stairs and welcomes you into our kitchen.


Please step into our kitchen and enjoy some Christmas cookies.


Mom bought me the cutting board last year and I leave it out year round.

This is hanging on the wall in the dining room. I love the string of lights, they are made of wood. Mom and I found these in a Christmas shop a couple years ago. The stocking hanging to the right was bought for me when I was a baby by my great grandmother and I can tell you they are the only pair of hot pants I have ever own. I still have every stocking I have ever had.

The kids want to know where they are supposed to sit, I told them the floor looked pretty comfortable, and don't sit on the pillows.

I collect snowmen, gingerbreadmen and Christmas pillows.

This is our Christmas tree, it's not fancy but I wouldn't trade it for anything. All of the ornaments on it had alot of sentimental meaning. I have things the kids have made me in school, pictures of them in ornaments, old ornaments from when Rusty and I were first married and ornaments that have been gifts over the years. One of our family traditions is to give each one of the kids a new ornament every year. We have Bob the builder, basketballs, baseballs, footballs, Ashleigh has an ornament that was given to her by Rusty's dad, who passed away in 1994, whatever the kids have been interested at the time, we have an ornament for it. One day when they grow up and have a tree of their own I will pass their ornaments to them and they will have them to start their trees. And yes, my angel is leaning a little to the left, Wayne said she was looking down the hall and watching over us, so he didn't want me to straighten her up.

This hangs by our front door, Rusty's Aunt painted this for us about 2 years ago. It is painted on slate and I love it.

As you leave our home, you can see that we are waiting for Santa to visit. Now we can flip the green sign to let everyone know that yes we have been very good this year and Santa has been here..