Tuesday, January 1, 2008

The week of Christmas.

Wow...it has been over a week now since I blogged last. It has been a very busy time here at the Lott house. I spent Dec. 22nd cooking and preparing for Dec. 23rd.

Dec. 23rd we had a total of 17 people in our house including kids. My mom, dad, brother, my brother's girlfriend, Dwayne's mom & dad, Dwayne's sister, her hubby & 2 kiddos, Dwayne's little sister, her son and then all of us. It was a full house! I made a full dinner for everyone to enjoy and then we had a few little gifts to open. Dwayne's mom always gives one gift at this dinner and it is always pjs.

Dec. 24th, my parents and my grandma came over for a brunch with homemade quiche and to open gifts. The kids and I had just finished up washing all of the dishes from the previous night and were ready for some fun with the grandparents. Dwayne had to work on and off on the 24th, so he would come in a play Santa passing out gifts and then running back out to check on his work. Can I just say, him working at home is absolutely wonderful!!!! I mean it is just great that he could spend time with us and get his work done at the same time. Fabulous! After the grandparents all left, the kids and I did dishes again...it has to be done. I must say, I love doing dishes with my kids. I could just leave it to them to do, but I love talking with them while we all work together, I am a very lucky mother to have such good kids. The rest of the 24th was a relaxing day for us, just some down time before we headed into Christmas day.

Christmas morning, ummmmm....maybe around 3ish...I woke up. I tried to be good. I tried not to bug Dwayne too much, not sure if I succeeded or not. Around 4am, I joked with Dwayne asking if I could just get the kiddos up....finally around 5am he relented, he told me I could get up. I started the coffee, got out the homemade cinnamon rolls, started the wonderful icing, turned on all the Christmas lights, and then went in and started waking up kiddos. I actually woke up Dora & Tobi, but Sari & Brighton were both already awake when I got to their rooms. We had a great time opening stockings and then moving on to gifts. An interesting twist to Christmas this year was the short scavenger hunt my kids got sent on.
Their 1st clue?
Here is the first of many hints
next look among your presents
for the clue to come
you won't look dumb
you will feel great pleasure
as you begin to look for treasure.
Then they each got a small gift from under the tree that had different clues that led to our songbook where we had to sing the song mentioned in their clues before they could get the next clue...here they are:
Tobi's clue
sing a song of a baby boy
born with much joy
In a manger he lay
asleep on hay?
Dora's clue
glory these angels sing
to a new born king
inside the songbook
is a clue if you look.
Brighton's clue
To find your song
you don't want to be wrong
Delight for this Planet is your clue
I am sure you will have to think for a few.
Sari's clue
the next clue you want to find
You will really have to use your mind.
in the song book so neat-o
will be a song of a Monarchial trio.
Then they all had the same clue again...
To the store, to the zoo
where ever we go, whatever we do,
if you want to find your lootie,
look where you always set your patootie.
next:
Back inside to hear the reason for today
and eat some breakfast, don't delay.
When story and food are all done
look for a way to continue the fun.
Here Dwayne took the time to read from the bible and I got breakfast all ready and put onto special plates, because underneath the plate was the very last clue...
What to find before you rest?
Something to make shopping best!
you will find it under your pillow so nice,
you will want to thank your parents twice!
And what did they find? Money to use to buy up some great deals after Christmas. It was lots of fun for us and the kids. One nice thing about getting up so early is that we had some good down time before we headed over to my grandparent's house to spend Christmas day with my dad's side of the family. Still once the day was over, I think we were all in bed by like 8:30pm...another good thing about getting kids up so early, they were all ready to go to bed early...lol.

Dec. 26th....not a good day for Dwayne, the poor man woke up very ill. He must have come down with 24 hr flu...he did not move much at all.

Dec. 27th, Christmas with the Clouses...lots of fun. I got the most fabulous artwork from Matt to hang on my wall. A personalized painting and he did a fantastic job on it.

Dec. 28th, our last Christmas of the year. We spent this night with Dwayne's family and had a great evening of leftovers and pizza. Our van was so full leaving grandma's house, we barely had room for the kids.

Dec. 29th...time to spend all that new Christmas money. Of course, Sari, being a teenage girl, out clothing shopped the rest of us. I think we were all ready to smack her if she suggested one more clothing store...lol. Tobi, on the other hand, walked away with tons of barbie deals from Target. I think the barbie population in our house has exploded. Brighton and Dora bought a few video games, but no clothing.

Dec. 30th, Dwayne and I decide to go to a little shopping without 4 kids. My goodness, I am not sure why, but those silly kids seem to get bored going to Lowes. So, off to Lowes for Dwayne so he could use his new gift cards and pick out what he wanted for Christmas. Oh yeah, and then over to Toys R Us to get the really big toy he wanted, a new Xbox 360. I am going to go and get my gift sometime this week. I am going to turn in an application to get a new pet for the Lott family. I can't believe I am trying this again, but with older kids and Tobi has never had a pet, I have decided to get a cat, or maybe 2.

Dec.31st...A fantastic evening at church at ROCK THE CAT BOX!!!! What a great evening. I took lots of video and pictures. I headbanged with Dora. It was a great evening.

Today, Jan. 1st 2008, yeah...the real fun begins. I will be taking down the Christmas tree and possibly, if I have the energy, take 2 teenage girls shopping....whew...maybe I will take a book.

Have a wonderful New Year's day!!!!

2 comments:

Mommy pfohl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mommy pfohl said...

catching up I see! It's about time! =) That Christmas hunt sounds awesome! Cool! I hope we can do something like that when the kids get older, HOWEVER, you will have to help me write it! =) Ok, so hope you have fun shopping today. Let Jeff know when he can come over and play with Dwayne on the xbox360 or whatever you called it. =) He'll be jealous. Later!