Christmas Catch-Up

When I am not working, I do not have nearly as much time to update my blog. Hmmm.

Since adding our own children to our lives, Jon and I learned that we prefer to be in our own house for Christmas morning. We spent Hailey's first Christmas at my sisters house because Jon was in the Tx course at Tyndall and we lived in the TLF's. I love being with my sister, but it is way easier to have Santa find you when you are sleeping in your own beds!

Hailey's 2nd and 3rd Christmases were both celebrated at our house in Virginia and Jon's family traveled to be with us. We planned for the same this Christmas, but our impending move required us to change it up AND operate on a compressed schedule. On Dec 23rd we drove to Jon's parents house in New Oxford PA and visited with them and Uncle Chris and Silly-Crazy-Aunt Ruth. We left the next morning to drive 6 more hours across Pennsylvania to my sisters house in Erie, PA so that Santa could find us there. The drive from Jon's hometown to mine is a beautiful drive and always reminds us how beautiful - and big- Pennsylvania is. The route we drive takes us through Statecollege PA so we can reminisce about our days at our beloved Penn State. We wanted to stop and visit PSU, but the two little screamers in the truck really just wanted to get to Aunt Casa's house and get ready for Santa. It probably wouldn't have been the same with them in tow, anyway, but it really is a shame that Hailey is almost 4 years old and doesn't have a picture at the lion shrine!

The amount of presents for my daughters and my niece and nephew were a little bit overkill, and it was a little bit chaos, but a lot-o-fun.

A big part of the reason why we re-arranged our Christmas plans was so that we could attend my friend Kelly's engagement party, which was in Erie on Dec 26th. Kelly is getting married in August in San Diego (which is where she lives) and I am going to be in the wedding (yay!) For my faithful blog-followers who have no idea who Kelly is, she was one of my roommates at Penn State, but more importantly she has been my friend all my life since the first grade.

Kelly invited us back the following day so that we could spend some quality time and so that she could see my girls. In an attempt to give my very pregnant sister a break, and because we are a little crazy, Jon and I decided to borrow my sisters minivan and take my 4 yr old nephew and 2 yr old niece along with us. We also took them all to Build - a -Bear and McDonalds.

We can totally handle four kids and a minivan!

Somewhere in between all of that we also celebrated with my dad and stepmom, my Aunt Diane, my mom, and my Aunt Helen and cousins Ann and Brynn - all of whom came with MORE presents. Aubrey officially has every toy ever made for 6 mo olds, and we can probably give Hailey some of her presents for her birthday, because by the time we get done unpacking in February, she won't remember what she has :)