Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a joyful holiday.

The girlies have been little angels since yesterday afternoon. We went to my uncle's house last night, where my kiddos were the only kids around and they were perfect--even while we were having an adults only gift exchange. We had let them open one gift beforehand, just to keep them occupied. The twins got Barbie MP3 players, which they LOVE (in addition to playing music, they look like dolls and have clothes and accessories that you can change out) and PS got a Flypen, which I'm not sure she's figured out yet.

Then my aunt gave them old school weaving looms, and they spent the entire evening and most of today making woven potholders. I find it rather amusing that with all of the fancy electronics they received, they have spent the most time on those weaving looms.

The girls seemed genuinely appreciative of the gifts they received from Santa this morning. I got DH a guitar and he got me a red Dooney & Burke purse. I'm not a label snob, but I will only carry leather purses, and I loved the look of this one. And we happened to stumble on it in Macy's when it was 30% off plus an extra 20% off--so a great deal. (Yeah--I told DH to get it and knew what I was getting ahead of time.)

So, per our usually protocol we spend Christmas day at home in our jammies. I had intended to make a decent dinner, but we were all so lazy that I just ended up making a giant pot of homemade mac 'n cheese--yum! But now I have to finish our packing and wrapping because tomorrow we leave for hometown, which will be 3 days of nonstop Chirstmas celebrations. We usually go to the movies on Christmas day, but with getting ready to leave town, it's just not happening this year.

And I am a teeny bit irritated w/ MIL (who I love--really!) because she just informed DH that she intends to take pictures of all of us in our nice holiday clothes when we get together tomorrow evening. Yeah--we have a 7 hour drive tomorrow and will be arriving only shortly before this get-together. And I generally travel with a ponytail, no make-up and my sweats. So I'm going to have to get up extra early to make myself beautiful in the morning--so I can spend the next 7 hours in the car--or I can try to squeeze in an hour-and-a-half's worth of showering, hair flattening, and kid readying into half an hour before all of DH's sibs show up at MIL's. And we can't leave any earlier in the morning because we have to drop off the critters for boarding.

Oh, and for anyone who's still reading, and wondering what happened with MIL's health issues, she had an appointment with her oncologist on Tuesday who said there was no indication of any cancer anywhere. We were all holding our breath waiting to hear this for the last 2 weeks. They aren't sure what IS causing her issues, but they have put her on a different medication and she is feeling much, much better.