busy, busy, busy

We've had a very busy weekend around here; but a great one.

Yesterday we finished putting up Christmas decorations, finally. I don't think I've ever waited so late to get the tree up. Thankfully Jonathan doesn't seem nearly as tempted as I thought he would. *knock on wood* While decorating I went through all of our Christmas stuff and we're sending a bunch of things to Goodwill. It's all stuff that we never put up, or don't like. It was just taking up space. Now I can start collecting more things that I *do* like & *will* use. One thing I still plan to do when we take the tree down is go through our ornaments & purge some of those too. I have a ridiculous amount of gingerbread man ornaments, so I'll definitely be getting rid of some of those. I'd really like to start collecting ornaments that mean something to us; something that represents an event from that year, or that family/friends have given us. That way, as we're decorating the tree, we can have memories for each ornament. Last year I made an ornament with Jonathan's picture, and I plan to do that each year from now on.

Our "Game Night Christmas" was last night with the Clavells & the Thompsons. I made chicken & dumplings; which were quite good if I do say so myself. After dinner & chatting we let the kids open their presents. (I have some pictures to post later.) Jonathan got 4 books; two of which play sounds/music. He thought they were quite fun! After presents the adults actually got to play a game!!! For the last several months since the youngest kids were born it's been increasingly more difficult for us to actually play any games. Our "game nights" usually are just "sit around talking & taking care of the kids" nights. Hopefully now that they're getting a little older & more "self entertained" we can get back to our games. We always have such a great time getting together no matter what. I am so thankful that we have these friends in our lives and that our children will grow up together.

Today was a very productive day:

~ went to church - still liking it pretty well, I think we'll go back again next week. Jonathan cried when we dropped him off at the nursery; he's never done that before. It was so hard to leave him, but we stood outside the door until he stopped crying. It only took a few minutes.
~ had lunch at our favorite restaurant
~ came home to pay bills & make grocery list
~ went grocery shopping & dropped them off at home
~ went to the mall to get a couple of Christmas gifts
~ went to Toys-R-Us to get one of Jonathan's gifts (I think this is the one)
~ went to Lowes to get another gift for Jonathan (I'm sure he'll love it! LOL)
~ stopped by Chris' parents house for a visit - Chris' mom had her first chemo treatment on Friday. Thank God she seems to be feeling pretty well considering.
~ came home

Phew, no wonder I'm so tired! It felt so good to get some things crossed off our list. Now we're done Christmas shopping except for each other. And I have no idea what I'm getting Chris yet. Apparently he's got a couple of things in mind for me... I can't wait to find out.