A Homemade Christmas

I had another one of those moments on Tuesday night...one of those moments where you step back to take a look at your life and wonder when did my life get here? I was standing at the kitchen counter fixing the same dinner my mom made every Christmas Eve my entire life with my kids bouncing off the wall from Christmas excitement in the living room and Spencer off to the store to run a last minute Christmas errand and I couldn't believe this was really my life. It was like a dream sequence or something. Am I really the adult in all of this? It doesn't seem possible. When did I start making all the Christmas preparations? And sending MY husband out to pick up whatever item it was that we still needed to make the holiday perfect?

I realize Tuesday is not actually Christmas Eve. Years ago...seven Christmas's ago in fact...Spencer and I were both way too stubborn to take on the other's Christmas Eve traditions so we decided to scrap them both and start our own. But we both missed our family traditions and a few years ago (thanks to the tradition of an old college room mate) decided to start an Eve of Christmas Eve party. It's a great opportunity to combine the family traditions Spencer and I miss the most. Why we couldn't have done that for Christmas Eve that first Christmas together, I don't know, but it turns our Christmas into a three day celebration and we love it.

So on this Eve of Christmas Eve we have a casual dinner...by candlelight...and stay up playing games and watching movies and eating snacks and we all sleep in the living room by the light of the Christmas tree. (Thanks Uncle Mike for providing our entertainment for the night...it was more than obvious that your gifts were a game and a movie so we decided to open them early for this occasion...they were perfect.) As usual, Parker out lasted the entire family and stayed up way past his bedtime...making him tired enough to go to bed early on Christmas Eve (just an added bonus of our little party.) The night was perfect. Though I sometimes wonder how my life could got to this point so quickly, I love where it's at. My family is so fun.

I was so glad this night was so perfect. Reid has been running a fever ever since. The kind of fever with cold chills that makes you sleep day in and day out. We had to put him to bed two hours early on Christmas Eve. He missed out on all of Wednesday night's festivities and had to have help opening most of his presents on Christmas morning. I'm afraid Thursday was a bit of a let down. But it was nice after all the Christmas busy-ness to have a lazy day.

As is our tradition, the missionaries came over for a delicious Christmas breakfast of Spencer's crepes stuffed with fruit and cream. The elders were a lot of fun. I wish we could have kept them all day. But the poor guys were BOOKED!

Spencer's off work until after the New Year...just another perk of working for a university. And I am looking forward to some much needed down time...if down time even exists for a mother of three crazies.

And since I've been so out of the blogosphere lately...a little update in pictures:

We dined with Santa

Thanks to mom's little challenge, I found these at a Goodwill:

And transformed them into these:
We had friends over to build gingerbread houses
I made myself a dress (and hate the posed picture, but Spence took this when I wasn't looking and you can hardly see the dress but at least it's proof.)I dressed the crazies for church. None of them got new Christmas clothes this year, but it was as good as new. Well Parker's was new...just a year old. We had made a purchase at Janie and Jack after Christmas as we do every year....fully lined wool dress pants for little boys that normally cost $60 go on sale for $8-$15 every January. We had totally forgotten about this purchase and remembered it just in time for Christmas. But the other two had lovely Christmas hand-me-downs from Parker and since they've never been worn in Texas, it was almost as good as new.

Proof that their hair was fixed at one point (but no time for posed pictures before church.)



Crazy pictures after church.




I sold another handbag. I've had a slow start to this whole Etsy thing, but the good news is a purse was selected for a front page show case about two weeks ago. I was on a high for a few hours after that.
Spencer and I built a table/desk for the boys for Christmas (And check out those cans on top...my mom put these together...tin cans and hardware connected to magnets...they boys have had so much fun making magnetic tin robots/ aliens for the past two days.)
A nice cubby hole for storage...it's definitely not without it's flaws but Spencer and I are pleased. We did this with no plans, very primitive tools and no trips back to the hardware store for more wood.

The self timer pictures as promised...in our MATCHING pj's and Reid sicker than a dog.


I made Reid's pj's with one short leg. He has this quirk that he can't handle jammies below his knee on his footless leg. Normally we just roll his pants...with another boy just a couple sizes behind him, I don't want to cut all his pj's, but since it was Christmas and the jammies were homemade, I thought he could have a special pair. He was so sick...these are the only two pictures I have of him were he's not laying down bundled in his blanket. Thank you children's Motrin for a few moments of on Christmas where Reid could perk up and enjoy it.

Parker enjoying all his presents at once.
The superhero accessories I've been working on.
I made Gray a puppy hat. He thought he was the greatest thing. He's not the kind to pull it off. He just toddled around barking at everyone and flapping his ears...all day.

And that's not the half of it. Could I have been any more busy? I doubt it.