Wow, What A Christmas!

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, and fun. For us here, I think this Christmas holiday will go down in the record books as one of the "bestest" ever. :-)

I am not sure how we managed it, but we were able to get the right combination of spending time with friends, just us, and the whole family. The boys soaked up the attention and were absolute stars everywhere we went.

On Wednesday, I went to my sisterfriend's house to make tamales. We had a blast spreading the masa (dough), filling the tamales with yummy goodies, and talking. The men folk came over in the evening and we feasted on our tasty accomplishment. The boys even liked them and mooched tamales from everyone they could find to give them some, probably because I wasn't the one to actually make all the ingredients! In case you're wondering, yes they had their own tamales to devour before they started the mooching.

Thursday was spent as a relaxing day together as a family. Is.aac had to work half the day, so the boys and I hung out and made merry by ourselves. We played outside and made a mess with play-doh. Good times. When daddy came home, we packed up the boys to go look at Christmas lights.

What's that, mommy?

Let's go over there, daddy!

Quit smiling! Let's get back to the lights!

That was fun!

They were fascinated with all the people around and loved, loved, loved the lights. I don't think either boys stopped talking the entire time we were out. The funniest part was how they told the lights "Goodbye, lights!" all the way to the car (and home, actually).

The boys are in a fun stage of knowing what to do with a present, but they don't have the expectation that there should actually be presents to open. That made Friday even more fun for me because they weren't expecting anything to be out of the ordinary. Their expressions of pure and utter delight as they entered our living room to see that a toy store had somehow exploded everywhere was almost worth every bit of everything we have been through in their lives. It definitely made it a day to remember.

What's this? (He swears they are spiders. I can't seem to break him of that, no matter how often I tell him they are caterpillars.)

Unwrapping our presents... (Ignore the big blond person in the background with the not-so-matching outfit-whoops!)

An airplane!

A remote! (And no, he wasn't fooled. The real kind is by far better.)

Sitting at our new table...

Reading a new book...

Looking at my picture album. (I made a book for each of them that is filled with important moments from their lives and family members. He's telling me there is a pumpkin right here.)

Once we finished opening gifts at our house, we headed to grandma's house where we did more of the same. I'll spare you the pictures except for this one...

Sh.awnie on his big boy bike. He rides that thing like a champ!

Doesn't he look great on that thing?

We ate like pigs, played Wii with the family, and just hung out together. Ah, it was just a perfect day. :-)

I do have to say, though, that I have reached a point now where I am completely exhausted. I am ready to get back to our regular normal routine.

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Speaking of which, AF decided to show this morning, a full eight days overdue. I am off for my scan and blood work tomorrow at 8:15. This is the cycle, right? Right.