Bean Sprout Chronicles: Christmas 2008

So, if you're wondering, yes I finished (& started) my Christmas shopping in 1 week! Clint's parents came up the weekend after Thanksgiving for an early Christmas with us. It was a lot of work, hosting Christmas at my house with the whole family, but we had a good time. We got a Wii and Guitar Hero World Tour, so the evening was spent battling it out! Here are the Christmas outfits I bought the kids at the consignment sale. They were super cheap and super cute!

Grady, like all babies, LOVED the tissue paper, tags, etc. He latched onto this one tag on one of Ainsley's shirts and played with it the whole time.

Here's what happened when I finally took the tag away from him! (Yes, I gave it back...I'm a sucker for crocodile tears!)

The following weekend was our Connection group Christmas party. We now have 14 kids (under 7) in our group with 2 more on the way. It was at my friend Jamie's house who had a 14 day old baby! Crazy woman! Here are a few of the kids showing off their presents after their gift exchange. We won an Olive Garden gift card!

Clint was sick the weekend of our group party and I got sick that Monday. I was sick until Christmas Eve! Grady got a little puny right before Christmas too, so Clint met us one day at the Promenade and sat in the car with Grady while Ainsley and I went to meet Santa. She was so excited! She went right up to him and crawled up in his lap, but then gave me this funny, little face for the picture. Typical 3 year old. She told Santa that she wanted "Princess dresses and my baby brother wants toys." :) I thought it was so sweet that she included Grady.

Here are my boys after the Christmas Eve service. This was our second year in a row to be home on Christmas Eve/Day and I think we'll probably always try to be in Arkansas for the service if at all possible.

Ainsley's letter to Santa. She drew the pictures first and then I wrote the words around them.

Christmas morning at home! Santa brought princess dresses and toys for Grady! I actually didn't spend any money on Grady's toys....Santa went shopping in the attic. :) After all the Santa excitement, I was cooking breakfast when I looked over and found this...

So, Ainsley and I ate breakfast and got the presents ready for our family Christmas. We normally do the 3 wisemen gifts, but I had already bought 3 gifts when I remembered that Grady and Ainsley had not bought each other anything. So, since our nativity scene has 3 wisemen and a shepherd, we called the 4th gift a shepherd gift. Ha! This is Ainsley with her gift from Grady. It was BY FAR her favorite gift from anyone. It's a music box with a little ballerina that dances around. She stares at it for sometimes 30 minutes or more!

After presents, kids went down for a nap and I started cooking. Clint's sister was supposed to be bringing a friend that didn't have anywhere to go, but she ended up not coming. So we had a ton of food! I made a huge brisket, rosemary roasted potatoes, homemade cracked-wheat yeast rolls with pumpkin butter, corn casserole and green beans. Yum!

We left the next day for Oklahoma to spend Christmas with my family. My sister, her husband, and my niece, Hailey, were all there too. Hailey is almost 2 now so the girls are finally at an age where they play well together. They were inseperable! My parents are currently remodeling all the bathrooms, basement, part of the kitchen, etc. so the entire upstairs and garage is full of stuff. So, with so many people and only 4 bedrooms, we had to get creative. My sister and brother-in-law slept in one bedroom, Ainsley slept in her normal bedroom, Hailey slept in the nursery, my parents slept in the basement, Clint and I slept in my parents room, and Grady slept in the pack-n-play in the dressing area of my parent's bathroom! He slept really good in the bathroom! :) I got the kids matching pajamas, but they were flannel and it was like 65 degrees. Grady got hot so we took his shirt off...