Christmas... Here & Gone

That went fast! We had a terrific Christmas with my parents and family. Peter got out of work at 11 am on Thursday (awesome!) so we finished packing and headed out.

We all went to Christmas Eve service. I can't remember the last time I went! It was so nice to see people I knew growing up in church and to show off our sweet girl. Carina slept through most of the service but she still got a glow stick like all the other kids for the candle lighting. After we got home Carina opened her Christmas Eve present - pajamas (a Merrill tradition!).

Christmas morning we made cinnamon rolls (another tradition) and by the time Mom woke up Carina was ready for her morning nap. We just couldn't wait to open presents so the adults went to town on the gifts while Carina slept. Once she was awake and happy she opened hers. She preferred eating the wrapping paper to opening and playing with the presents.

Later in the day I made sausage balls and Mom made a fabulous dinner. Ham, baked pineapple, sweet potatoes, veggies, mac-n-cheese... yum! My brother's family came over and we all soaked up the joyful chaos. Later in the evening we went to my Pop-pop's and visited with lots more family. It was great to see so much family in one short day. Many hadn't seen Carina in a few months.

With all the Christmas excitement, Carina didn't nap well at all and her exhaustion reared its ugly head at bed time. She screamed and screamed and refused to be consoled - so unlike her. My Mom finally quieted her down but between being wound up, being in a strange place and having a bad cough, she didn't sleep well all night. She spent much of it in bed between me and Peter. It took a couple days of extra sleep but she made a full recovery, haha.

When we came home Saturday, the rain had depleted most of our snow. We weren't sad to say goodbye. Sunday I made cheesecake brownies - a recipe from my new cream cheese recipe book from Mom. We delivered them to some friends. We did a ton of laundry. Other than that it was a fairly quiet weekend. We had Peter's car towed to the shop because he started having brake problems last week. We picked it up yesterday and "Lucille" is now in perfect working order again. Sadly we had to spend our Christmas money on the car (not nearly as much fun as a Wii) but fortunately we had it. There's always the tax return, right?

Peter went back to work today - a sad day for the Jones household. Carina tried bananas for the first time this morning. She gagged a bit (as she did with the apple banana flavored oatmeal) so I'm wondering if maybe bananas aren't her favorite, haha. She's peacefully napping now. We have no intentions of leaving the house today as the wind is seriously crazy. I saw on the news this morning they saw 60 mph gusts in Lancaster! Hope my Dad doesn't blow away delivering the mail.

So now Christmas has come and gone... but not completely. I still light up our tree every time I'm downstairs. I hate the thought of un-decorating. Maybe next weekend. Till then it's time for hot chocolate and Elf.