onelittleone: Christmas x 3

This has been quite a week. We celebrated our second Christmas with Grace, which was much more exciting than last year, when she was only four months old. But even at 16 months, she was much more interested in racing around Nomma and Grampa's house and trying on Uncle Eth's shoes than opening any of her gifts.

We broke tradition this year and opened presents with my family on Christmas Eve. We had a great time. Lots of good food and drinks and lots of laughs. We ended up spending the night there because of some nasty freezing rain. Grace was so excited to wake up at Nomma and Grampa's house in the morning. She even had a brief, but special visit with Great Grandma Jones. Unfortunately, Great Grandma Lower has not been doing well and was unable to make it. We did stop by her apartment the next day for a brief visit with the rest of our family. She enjoyed seeing Grace and her other grandkids and great-grandkids.

On Saturday, we had our annual "Lower side" Christmas, complete with Chinese Auction and lots of yummy treats. As usual, it didn't disappoint. I ended up with a $30 Target gift card and a water bottle. Not too shabby. Don ended up with my "wild side" Snuggy - poor guy! There were lots of laughs and it was fun to see Anna and Grace together, although they mostly just wanted to run around and do their own thing.

We took our exhausted girl and went to the Abbott's for Christmas #3 immediately following the Lower Christmas. She was a trooper, but we paid for it later when it took an hour of protesting and tears to get her to sleep. The excitement of the night was cousin Megan's surprise gift - a baby guinea pig from Granny and Grandpa. Grace was pretty excited about it too, and made sounds similar to the guinea pig.

Grace took to Megan, who just turned seven, right away. I think she must remember her from John and Lisa's Labor Day weekend visit. They have been inseparable for the last two days, running around together, pushing Guinea in the baby stroller, playing Johnny Horton on the computer, dancing with the dancing snowman that Grandpa bought for Grace, and rocking on her new rocking horse.

Today, we got some much needed rest and relaxation at home. I think we all needed it; a little sense of normalcy, and recuperation from days of organized chaos. There is so much to clean and put away, but I just can't deal with it yet. Tomorrow......the quest for organization will begin. I have never been able to conquer the beast that is our clutter.

Here are a few of my favorite memories from this crazy week: