Christmas

This year our holiday season was pretty chaotic. Since we closed on our house the day before Thanksgiving, we have been tearing the house apart. Our first major project was the tile in the kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom. So our washer and dryer have been in our family room. Then we pulled up all the carpet 3 days before Christmas. We didn't finish the tile unitl the week after Christmas, so we could only walk very carefully on it Christmas morning. I did manage, however, to empty everything out of our family room on Christmas Eve and try and create a positive atmosphere. I couldn't find all our stockings, our tree had been knocked over 3 times while moving it from room to room since I put it up, and overall our chaos had been overpowering the holiday season. We didn't spend much money this year since we were way busy and all our money is going into the house. But luckily the kids still loved every minute of it and don't know the difference. Here's the best I could do to get ready:

 The kids at the top of the stairs waiting anxiously:

 I love their faces as they see all the presents Santa brought:

 Brayden's big gift this year was a Leapfrog Leapster with a bunch of games. He really loves it and takes it in the car everywhere. Both kids got digital cameras, and Brooklyn got a bunch of random stuff. After we finished up we hurried and got ready to go have Christmas breakfast with Josh's mom's side of the family. Breakfast was fantastic as always. Here's Rachael holding Brynlee. She is the BEST babysitter ever. I'm so glad my kids love her so much:

 Brooklyn and Brayden helped hand out all the presents. We all got random stuff from Josh's grandma's house. She has SO much stuff, that it's good to help her get some of it cleaned out.

 Here are all the great grandkids:

 All the grandkids and their spouses:

 I love this picture of Grammy with Brynlee. Josh's grandma had a stroke a few months ago and is still recovering. This is the first time she was actually able to hold Brynlee.

 After breakfast we headed back home so the kids could take a good nap. My parents came and visited us when the kids woke up. We celebrated Christmas with my family the next day, but it was fun to see my parents. We then headed back over to the Ericson's to enjoy the rest of the evening with Josh's family. Here's our little family:

 Brynlee is still the sweetest, most peaceful baby. Love her!

 Brooklyn's big gift was this big dollhouse and all the accessories you can think of. It's the one that Kay grew up playing with. Brooklyn loves it and plays with it all the time.

Overall, we had a really good Christmas. It's been hard to teach the kids the real meaning of Christmas and focus on that while we've been in such chaos this month. Hopefully next year we will be able to do all our traditions again and have a much better holiday season. However, it is all worth it as we are close to having our house ready to move into. I'm very grateful for our house and all the help people have given us.