Christmas 2011

We had a nice, quiet Christmas here.  We kept with our traditions from last year; spent most of the day with Bry-D's family, eating and laughing.  This was the first year Lex seemed to really 'get' the whole present thing.  Eliz gets so excited to be unwrapping, she doesn't even notice whats he gets, and later she's all surprised and excited to see everything. Which is cute and funny, but Bry-D and I are the only ones that see it.  We need to try and teach her to sl-ow-do-wn! 

We got the kids some big gifts- a dollhouse for Eliz-

And a parking garage for Lex-

The boxes for these were huge-I had to make room in the garage, so I wrapped them weeks earlier than normal, the kids kind of forgot they were under the tree.  Or, beside it.  They did get other things from us and from family, and they love all of them, I'm not going to inventory presents on here.  I was a lot more careful with my planning and spending this year.  But that's a post for later. 

   When Bry-D was opening his gifts he told Eliz, "Your Mom knows me too well."  Probably.  I was very excited for him to hook up this, an ergonomic gaming keyboard.

And yes, he got me something wonderful-a big comfy blanket, and I didn't even have to tell him to get animal print, he did that part on his own!  It's all warm and comfy and I get mushy and gooey with love for my honey when I roll up in it.

There was one very special gift from my parents to me, and this will require a post all it's own, but here's a preview-

They insisted that they had to come over-a 45 minute drive ONE WAY- the day after Christmas to give me this really great gift.  I'll admit, I was kind of annoyed.  They had to come early b/c Dad had to be somewhere, and Bry-D and I couldn't figure out what was so special, so important that it necessitated all this?  Then I took the old tablecloth off.

My mother had gone through _all_ and I do mean _all_ the family heirlooms and divided them up between my sisters and I.  My father made a custom box for it, and they printed out a genealogy and inventory book to go with it. By itself, that's a big deal.  However, my box gave my Dad fits, so it wasn't ready; which means my sisters got theirs and couldn't say anything about it until they knew I had gotten mine.  That's why my parents HAD to come over, my sisters were dying to talk about the boxes.  I've got to find a way to display this-I may try to design and make a coffee table just for this.  It's huge, though-2 ft high, 2 ft wide, 3 ft long. It's got so much n it, it'll take forever to see everything, which is kind of the point.