Calm Amongst the Chaos

Here I sit on the day after Christmas. The day that all of a sudden I realize I have no elf mischief to figure out. No wrapping to put off. No shopping, no baking, no cooking. Andi Jane is at a friends, Lily is resting after her caregiver fed and bathed her for me and Oli is quietly playing with all his new toys. I am awaiting others to make a play on words with friends and pretty much got all caught up with what everyone else did yesterday on Facebook. So here I sit with my feet up nonetheless while hubby watching some show about a pawn shop while he switches back to a show about coast guard tryouts. I sit with Lily’s iPad on my lap trying to type out a blog on this keyboard that I am not a huge fan of, yet too cheap to purchase a keyboard for this thing. I guess what I am trying to say is this may be the closest to bored I have been in a long time and probably the last time in a long time. It’s quite nice to be honest. Christmas time seemed to have flown by as it always does, but I wasn’t too sad for it to be over. As much as I love it, I never realized how exhausting it is for parents and it seems the older they get the more involved it all is. And to be totally frank, I will be happy when my kids realize we are Santa. I never cared much for the whole hoopla of him anyhow. Maybe it’s because my sister was a bit of a jerk and ruined the whole thing for me before I ever really got to enjoy the idea of him, maybe that is just me projecting that upon my kids. Maybe it’s because we do a whole lot of work for him to take the credit and maybe it’s because The birth of Jesus really gets over shadowed by him. (excuse me while I get back into my bored position. I needed to change a poopy diaper and run to walgreens for some pepto for the hubs….ok …feet back up…. Ahhh…. Ok)
So where was I.. Oh yeah Scrooge mode. Not necessarily, I just first hate lying to my kids. Especially with Andi Jane who is well beyond her years. This is the same kid at 3 asked why Santa had the same wrapping paper as us, at 3! So her questions get more elaborate and it’s getting hard to keep this whole thing going. She still totally believes. How do I know this? She told Chelsey (Lily’s amazingly wonderful caregiver whom is only here during her Christmas break, all our caregivers are wonderful we are very lucky, but it’s a special treat to have
Chelsey here for this short period of time) Andi told her that Santa brought her the dollhouse because her parents would have never bought her that. Pretty funny she said that because she watched her dad put it together and we all knew he’d never choose that project on his own.
Anyway, knowing Andi we wont have too long with her still believing, but I am pretty sure she’ll help Oli still believe. So who knows how long
we will be figuring out what Alex the elf is doing each night. Although when they do realize it all, they may not think it was that funny that
“Alex” drew mustaches on their faces.
Our Christmas was wonderful. Christmas Eve was simple, we just hung out at home, I baked a lot then we volunteered in our church nursery
and after went to the 5pm service. Lily’s class didn’t meet so she sat with us. We were pretty close to the front and she was great the whole service, well almost. Andrew sat next to her and held her hand the whole time. That kept her quiet, but then daddy had to go to the restroom,
I was a seat over from her but kept touching her so she knew I was there…. But apparently that wasn’t enough for her because in the middle
of service she screamed a scream only Lily knows how to do. So loud she stopped our pastor right in his sermon. He was talking about
writing our own songs in our lives and he recovered by saying just like that and then said that it was ok and smiled. I however sat there with
an extremely red face and couldn’t stop laughing. When Andrew came back I told him what happened and for the rest of the service I just
giggled. Apparently in my attempt to quiet the child I put my hand over her mouth and realize that probably looked awful, but I didn’t know
what else to do. At the end of the service our pastor made a point to find us and apologize for stumbling after she screamed. I thought that
was very sweet of him, considering we should have been the ones to apologize. He said Lily is welcome in service any day. The service was
standing room only and I’m sure there were well over 500 people in that service so we thought that was very sweet of him to go looking for
us. Everyone loves Lily even when she screams a blood curdling scream in the middle of a Christmas Eve service.
Christmas morning was perfect. Kids loved all their gifts, they were all so excited. Oli got some drums which has been interesting. Gradma
and grandpa N got an electric mototorcycle for him and he’s been all over the place in that thing. He’s been a crack up. Girls got cute clothes and other fun girl things. Lily mostly cares about pumpkin pie and Aunt Jenn’s pineapple cake stuff that goes with ham though.
We went to my sisters this year since my parents have moved up north to Greer. My sister could put any cooking show celebrity to shame. She bakes and cooks amazingly and so it’s always nice to be at her house. It was great to see my parents were able to come down for the day and we had a great time. Whenever my family gets together it seems like we end up with a popular quote of the day and yesterday was I was gonna get your gift but the store was closed. That was a true story from my sister to Andrew but then it started coming up whenever we wanted an excuse. Then after my mom gifted out scratcher tickets (they are convience store owners) 🙂 my 14 year old niece sat there while scratching saying “I’m pretty sure this is illegal” which of course ended up being the quote of the day as well. But an awesome thing happened, my brother won $500 on his scratcher! He totally deserved it so it was an awesome thing to watch happen!
After my sisters we went to my aunts and celebrated with my moms brothers and sister, we ate, laughed and played a little LCR and I lost each time. No we really aren’t gamblers but it sure sounds like it. Christmas was a great time! We had such an amazing day. I just love being with my hubby and kids on this special day. My extended family makes things even better, but being with my hubby and the 3 very special little people we brought into this world makes me feel really blessed. Also super thrilled with my ninja I got 🙂