Christmasing

Only one week until Christmas. Are you kidding me? I can't believe what a whirlwind December has been. Last week was a crazy rush of shopping, wrapping, baking and finally some fun over the weekend. What a crazy weekend it was; it seemed that all of our activities fell on those 2 days. On Friday night, we spent the night at Chris' parents' house to celebrate Christmas a little early since we'll be in Wisconsin next week. We enjoyed pizza and some classic Christmas cartoons on the Disney channel and finally managed to get Lukie to bed. The funny thing is, on Saturday morning,he slept in much later than both Chris and I, and we were anxiously waiting for him to wake up so we could open presents! Luke got lots of fun stuff from Grandma and Papa and enjoyed some gifts from Maw Maw too. He loves playing with this Play Dough Fun Factory and the Magna Doodle, among other fun stuff.

We headed home around naptime, where Luke took half of a nap (awoke from the phone - it was ME calling Chris!). At 5pm we had a little shindig with some friends - GREAT FUN. Luke loved having Connor and Claire over. Ava was greatly missed as she was convalescing at home with her grandparents. I tried to get some pics of the kids in front of the tree. We were semi-successful.

On Sunday, Luke and I stayed after church for small group where we had lunch and Luke played with Bree while I went to the Bible Study. Chris went home to study for a test (GRE) that he has to take on Friday night. He picked us up a few hours later and we headed out to Williamston to Chris' Aunt Sandi's to celebrate Megan's birthday. I forgot my camera, so there are no pics from that event. The big action happened on the way home though. I was just merging onto Southfield Freeway from 96 when I had no acceleration, and the car just died! I was glad Chris was with me, and fortunately, Chris' mom, brother and grandma weren't far behind us; so they took Luke and me home while Jerry stayed with Chris. The bummer is that the timing belt broke, and it might cost $150 or more to fix. The real bummer is that more significant damage may have been done after the belt broke, and the care might be beyond repair. Fortunately, a friend of Chris' dad is working on it for us, so we won't be charged an arm and leg for labor. We are praying that replacing the timing belt will be all that is required. That is our primary mode of transportation, as our other car doesn't have heat. (Yikes.)

This morning, Luke woke up with a stuffy and runny nose. He seemed a little uncomfortable, and I'm praying that he won't get fully sick before Christmas! Benedryl seemed to help him significantly, and it was nice that I didn't have much to do. We basically just hung out and played with his new toys. This is pretty much the plan for most of the week.

Below are some pics of our recent activities. Luke LOVED his first try at painting. (Don't ask me what those figurines actually are.) He gave them to his Grandma and Papa for Christmas. You should have seen the look on their faces. Priceless. I told them that Lukie wanted them to keep the figurines on their mantel forever and ever. :) I'm not sure that it's another Picasso that I have on my hands. We'll keep trying other areas of interest for now. :)



Look at those lips - what concentration!





Don't ask me what he's doing here. Just being Goofy Lukie.



"Christmas Eve" - "You said we could open one present, right?" (As he starts to tear open the present)



"Christmas Eve" - Luke's bummed that he can't open ALL of the presents.



Annabelle prefers to chew her presents open.



Lukie and Maw Maw



Annabelle has become such a Papa's girl!




"Um, can we please get this opening-presents-show on the road?"



Lukie and his Grandma on "Christmas Morning"



Take 1: Some escapees



Take 2: Luke trying to put his arm around Claire.



Take 3: Who is that rat that keeps trying to escape? And what's up with the cat eyes?



Take 4: I just went ahead and took the picture because Connor was smiling so cute - at his dad I think.



Take 5: This picture just cracks me up. I'm not sure what Connor was thinking. I'll let his mom write a caption for this one. She knows him better. ;)



We had a little Bono in the house :)



The kids - just hanging and having a little chit-chat