a christmas to remember

This Christmas was so fantastic. It was a Christmas I will always remember. We were going, going, going, and thoroughly enjoyed every moment. Above all, I was so happy and grateful for my sweet little family. I felt so content this Christmas, like everyone who was supposed to be here, was. It was a wonderful feeling, and our little Christmas was magical.

Warning: this is a long post with a lot of pictures... sorry!

To begin our festivities, we ventured to the "Christmas Story House." In case you were wondering, this movie was filmed right here in Cleveland.... if you listen closely, you can here them talk about "Cleveland Street." Well, it wasn't exactly ON Cleveland street, but very near downtown Cleveland itself.... a little bit of a shady neighborhood, but still very fun to see it. They also have a museum and gift shop across the street from the house, so that was fun also. It's open year round, in case you want to come visit me and go see it!!

Here's the house, with us in front.... They have restored it to look just as it was in the movie. Leg lamp in all it's glory shines bright.

Oh fuuudddddggge...... remember when they get a flat tire? This is the very car from the movie. Classic. We also saw lots of the other "classics" like the really LONG wool hats, the leather cap with googles that Flick wears. We even saw little miniatures of Skut Farkus, Flick sticking his tongue to the flag pole, and Randy in the red snow suit.
Several of these classic items were for purchase. We were REALLY tempted to purchase something, but the eye popping price tag of $109.00 for the pink bunny suit made us think twice. We were a little shocked to see all the leg lamp parafanelia, you can get one in every size!
I forgot to mention that we went to the Christmas Story house with our friends. Afterward, we came back here to do some warming up. We had yummy tortilla soup and let our kids play. This is Eli and his new friend Anderson. Aren't they cute? They are only a couple weeks apart, and are already great friends, I can just tell. The other night, Anderson was stroking Eli's hair.... EVERYBODY loves to touch "E's" hair!
Christmas Eve morning was really great. I woke up before everybody, went downstairs in the dark, turned on the Christmas lights, had some hot chocolate while I listened to Christmas music and planned out my day. Our house has been cozy during Christmas, I love the glow of the Christmas lights. I've been debating on leaving some up on my mantel all year just because I love it.... we'll see.

Eli had his 2 mo. check up on Christmas eve morning. Yes, I know kind of weird, but it was the soonest available. So, we got up and got ready to head out the door. He looked so handsome in his button down shirt, I couldn't resist a picture. He is getting so big! He's in the 80% for weight, 50% for height. He's a sweetie, and we have loved watching him grow. He's even been sleeping in his bed!
Christmas Eve was so much fun. It was a very relaxing day. We had two families/friends over. We had the meal all planned, the table set, and everything ready to go. I even got to take a nap! That's what preparation and organization does! ;)

I'm wishing I would have taken a picture with all the food out, but I didn't get time to do that. I did take a picture of our name cards though. I thought they turned out cute. You probably can't see them very good, but they were all cute and glittery. I made white chocolate popcorn, and put everyone's name on their own bag, then on their plate. We LOVED using our Christmas dishes to entertain this year, it is such a fun tradition, I'm glad we started it. These are my yellow bird plates, they are out everyday (on my wall) but we got to use them as part of our Christmas stuff to make enough place settings. This was our fourth year of our Christmas dishes tradition, it's growing!! Now at least we have one place setting for each of us!
After our wonderful meal of ham, potatoes, raspberry jello salad, spinach salad with strawberries, wild rice and corn salad, we were stuffed. So we sat around and let our kids open presents, read the scripture story, sang some songs, and read the Night Before Christmas. The kids loved their PJ's and of course put them on right away.

Here's the cute kiddos. All these boys are really close in age and have a great time together. In fact, I thought it was funny because between all of us there are only boys! Six to be exact, and they are all almost the same ages!
This is Myrtle. Myrtle is a sweet little lady in our ward. She doesn't have family, so we decided to have her over for our Christmas Eve. I think she enjoyed herself, and all the noise. We got her some PJ's to open too!! I think she really liked that. Isn't she sweet?


And here's a picture of all of us, minus a couple babies that were sleeping. It was a blast to have everyone over. After PJ's, we put on a movie for the kids and we played some games, ate even more food, had hot chocolate, and laughed a lot.
The kids decorated sugar cookies for Santa, and were having a great time!

Here's Will posing by his creations for Santa. I bet Santa thought these were the best cookies he got all night!! wink wink.
Here's my boys. Eli looked like a little Elf in his "Baby's First Christmas" PJ's, I loved them.
CHRISTMAS MORNING!!

Our Christmas Eve didn't end until about midnight. Will didn't go to bed until 12:30am. That is the latest he has ever stayed up, I couldn't believe he was still going strong. He was so excited about Christmas. Since he went to bed so late, he didn't get up until 8am, which I was quite happy with. Eli gave us a great Christmas present by eating at 11pm, going to bed IN HIS CRIB, and sleeping until 5:30am, then getting in bed with us, and not waking or eating again until 8am when Will came in to get us. I was quite happy with that, he is learning to sleep in his bed!!

When Will started opening presents, he would take each little thing, and line it up behind the couch by the tree, it was so funny. He kept saying "I'm SO lucky!" "This is SO fun!" He was having a great time, and it was a lot of fun to see him so excited about such little things. Christmas is so fun with kids.

Here's little E Christmas morning, bright eyed and not a clue to what was going on.

Will's BIG gift was a pirate ship with a million little pieces and parts (half of which are already lost). He LOVED it. Has been playing with it a lot and was so excited to open it. It was his final present to open and ended Christmas on a good note!

Our Christmas festivities didn't stop after un-opening gifts. We layed around, took naps, and then headed to our friends house for fondue. Will played and enjoyed himself. When we got home, Will and Scott put up the air-matress, got out the sleeping bags and had a "Daddy's night." They watched a movie, ate candy, and slept by the tree. Eli and I went to bed.... and Eli slept again in his bed for almost 5 hours!!

The day after Christmas, we did some shopping with some gift cards, and relaxed some more. I used Scott's time off work to PUT him to work on taking down the tree. I know, bit sudden, but I wanted his help and it is back to work on Monday. So, we took down the Christmas stuff, to which Will was saddened to tears. Crying and crying saying "I'm NOT ready for Christmas to be over!!" It was cute. He sure enjoyed himself. That night, we called some friends to see if they wanted to get in the hot tub. We were hoping to do it Christmas Eve, but ran out of time. So, they came over, we ordered pizza, and the boys enjoyed the hot tub while Stacey and I stayed inside with Anderson and Eli.
The boys had a blast and Will is talking about doing it again real soon!

It has been such a fun holiday, one of our best as a married couple. We look forward to many more Christmases in our home, and making more memories as a family. Life is great. I love Christmas and I love the strength it gives us to go on and start another year. We are looking forward to another year, getting back on our "routine" and see what the year has in store for us. It is always a little sad to take down the tree, but we are looking forward to a visit from Grandpa and Grandma in February, and Will is excited to get back to pre-school and our regular library visits.

I hope you all had a great holiday! We missed our family and are grateful for them more than ever during Holidays. Love to you all~