Christmas 2014

I'm sitting here at my table, the day after Christmas, and can't believe another one has passed already.

This Christmas was different AGAIN, with losing Danny's dad just a short few weeks ago. I feel like we still are trying to figure things out even still from losing my dad a year ago. I crave the holidays that feel whole and complete. Maybe they will again someday. Or maybe they won't ever be again.  For the second year in a row we had sympathy cards mixed in with our Christmas cards. I have many of moments of didn't we just do this? and I can't believe we are doing this again.

That being said, I think we did great this Christmas. I carried on my theme from last year. Took pressure off and if we didn't REALLY want to do it, we didn't do it.  We didn't get lights hung on our house. Christmas still came.  I didn't want to make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. Danny threw in 2 rolls of Cinnabon cinnamon rolls when we were last minute shopping and called it good. Christmas still came. We laughed a lot. Some of us cried. We watched a lot of movies. Baked a lot of cookies, and one of us cried like a baby during Silent Night at the candle light service.  (Is there anything more beautiful?)

Danny and I were about to burst with excitement about one of the gifts we got for our boys. Our daycare elf, Mistletoe Max, stuck around to help deliver it,  Tristen has a love/hate..mostly hate..relationship with Max, so it was just icing on the cake I found a cute little elf jersey in the Halmark store.

Anyway, back to the gift: We got them Kansas City Chief tickets!

And Tristen thought his ticket was a "stupid letter mom wrote from the elf" and almost didn't read it!! HAHAHA

Danny got me a Garmin watch to help with my running...so...I guess I HAVE to start running more now.  He also gave me a skillet that says "Peace Love and Taco grease, some warm winter boots, and an Ipod dock so I can listen to my music MUCH louder while in the kitchen now!!

I was also SHOCKED when this CA-UTE little chair was carried into my living room. It was made by some of my favorite people in this entire world, and had been part of a scheme with my mother.  I had been drooling over this chair on Facebook and still can't believe IT'S MINE!!!

My boys scored as well, but the favorite gift came from Grandma Glennda.  She got both of them a little remote controlled drones, and feared they were too old for them.  They literally messed around with those things all stinking day. I don't think any boy/man is "too old" for "toys" like that! We got Tristen a big drone, that records while it is in the air. Its pretty cool, and has already had to have been rescued several times from our Mulberry bush in our yard.

One of the best parts of our day was going out to check on the cows.  We have 2 girls who are due anytime, and they've been checking bags and watching them close.  Jacob told us Tristen's cow, Black Out was closer than his, but that he didn't think it would be soon.  We loaded up, and went out. I said I thought there was going to be a baby. Jacob disagreed.  I won.  There was cute fluffy little black bull calf out with his momma at the bale.  We don't know for sure, but I'm guessing she had him more on Christmas Eve..probably right after Jacob checked and claimed nothing was happening. hehe He was really clean and dry and was running around when we were out there.

To:Tristen Merry Christmas Love, Black Out

So--Tristen following his Black OUT, Burn OUT, theme....meet SLEIGH OUT.  

Hope you all had a VERY Merry Christmas!!

"Sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see." The Polar Express