Happy Holidays

Oh my goodness, another week has come and gone. And in that week? Well, Christmas of course, which means a lot of running around, a lot of family togetherness, a lot of good cheer, but not a lot of rest. I'm pooped, and work begins once again tomorrow. I did stay home today, but it was filled with laundry and big disappointments. The 1st being trying to change out Ashleigh's earrings because she has been wearing unmatched earrings for quite some time now and I was tired of looking at them (this was from 1 falling out, getting lost, and me having to put an unmatched one in because she wouldn't let me change out the other). Well, I tell her to go get another pair of earrings and she starts bawling! I mean as if I asked her to jump in a pool of fire. But she went and got them and I noticed one of the posts were broken. Well, crap, she's never even worn them. So I knew Oma got her a pair for Christmas that had lady bugs on them so we go get those...with her still bawling and me risking vomit all over the place...I thought for sure it was going to come up a few times, but I threatened her life if it did. So I tel her to sit down so I can take out the mismatched ones. This was such an ordeal I just couldn't believe the way she was acting and I was getting so mad at her. But I finally get them out and they were quite dirty so I decided we needed to clean her holes. She threw a fit even with the ear cleaning stuff, but I got them cleaned. Now it's time to put in the new earrings. OH MY LORD, you just wouldn't have believed that was my sweet little Ashleigh acting like that, I was in shock and thought maybe we needed an exorcism to get the devil out of my little girl!! I managed to get one earring part of the way in and it started bleeding. I don't know why, maybe because she was thrashing around so much I may have missed, or maybe they were infected, though they weren't red or anything, so I don't know. After the last flailing episode, I pretty much had enough and told her (in a not so nice voice) that we were letting her holes close and if she wanted to be beautiful with earrings, then she would have to get it done on her own when she's old enough to drive herself. I've seriously had enough and am NOT going to fight her with those dammed earrings for one second longer. It's a shame since she was so very brave when she got them pierced...OH WELL!!!

The second disappointment of the day was the Cowboys...enough said! I'm so upset that I wanted them to go to the Playoffs so bad and they obviously wanted to start their vacation early. Whatever!

Our Holiday was nice. As usual, I was out there on Christmas Eve with all of the other last minute wackos! Luckily, I took the day off and got an early start. It really wasn't bad at all, I was pleasantly surprised. I started out at Best Buy and there wasn't a soul in line ahead of me, SCORE! Then Leslie's Pool Supply and not a soul in the store at all besides the clerk. Then Target...again, not busy at all and waited behind only 1 person to check out. I got done shopping so fast, I headed on over to Hobby Lobby to return a couple of things. Of all places, I waited the longest there, but again, not bad. Brittany was nice enough to come over at 8:00 am to watch the girls so I could get that shopping done. Then she was even nicer by sticking around to help me wrap ALL of my presents since I procrastinated with this as well AND she helped me make potato salad. All in all, Britti hung out with me for about 8 hours, which I thoroughly enjoyed since I don't get to spend much time with her these days, plus she'll be going off to college soon.

Oh, these pictures cracked me up, this 1st one is Sally...that dog thinks that blanket is hers and it doesn't matter where it is, she will get on it. She thought she was in Heaven when Daddy covered her up with part of it...spoiled, I tell you!



Hehehe, this one is Ash in her PJs and she had asked me if she could go get the mail and I said if you put on shoes and socks. Of all the shoes and of all the socks she has, this is when she came up with! Totally cracked me up! I guess she was in a Hello Kitty kind of mood, even though those shoes are a tad too small.



Since Brian's Mom is German, we always celebrate on Christmas Eve with her, per her traditions. We had a great time with great food. Oma really went above and beyond and we all enjoyed the evening.

Ash thinks it's a good idea to wear a headband with her hair in a "little ponytail". Oh, and she wears it half on her hair and half on her forehead.



This is just priceless...the Cousins waiting patiently (or not so patiently) for the opening of the presents. From top to bottom: Tekoa, Kaileyanna, Ashleigh, and Addyson.

Addy getting into the spirit of things:

Then of course, we had our traditional Christmas in the morning. I got up pretty early to shower and be sure I was ready for the day but Ash was up before I finished my shower. We didn't even have to wake Addy up because she woke up too soon after. Here's a picture of the goodies Santa left behind.

Ash showing off some of her loot:

Addy seemed to really enjoy her 1st Christmas and loved playing with all the paper and that's her new pink rocking horse in the background. She hasn't quite gotten a hang of it yet.

After our celebration at home we all got ready and headed to the Gaylord and met my Dad, Anna, the Harris', and the York's for our 1st Christmas gift from Dad which was their SPECTACULAR Christmas brunch in the Grand Ballroom. This was the brunch of all brunches and you knew it as soon as you walked in. They even had this little "path" as you walked in that was like a Winter Wonderland with beautiful decorations and plentiful photo opportunities. We spent about 2 1/2 hours at this brunch and I still didn't get to even half of the available food. Let me take a stab at telling you the available tables: breakfast (waffles, eggs, made to order omelets, bacon, potatoes, etc.), salad (every possible combination to have it just like you like it), sushi (I know nothing about this, but there were all sorts of different varieties and many people were in hog heaven), seafood (the biggest jumbo shrimp in the world, crab claws, salmon, etc), traditional meats/sides (fresh cut turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, veggies, etc.), breads (tons of varieties), fruit (tons of varieties), kids table (this was cool because it was a low table so the kids could serve themselves that included chicken nuggets, corn dogs, mac and cheese, veggies, cheese pizza, decorate your own gingerbread man, etc), dessert (OMG, more than you could imagine but the highlights were a chocolate fondue fountain that you could build your own stick of whatever and hand dipped ice cream for Cherries Jubilee, plus every other dessert you could possibly imagine in between. I'm sure I'm leaving something out, it was just really great. And then afterward, Dad treated us all to the ICE! Exhibit which was simple breathtaking (literally, since it was FREEZING in there). Here are some pics:

Poor Addy was so cold, but we bundled her up in one of the smaller parkas they provide and we could hardly see her. She was such a trooper!

This was Sydney, Peyton, and Ashleigh in the Gingerbread house:

Brian going down the ice slide:

The Nativity Scene at the end, it was just beautiful and the photos just don't do this place justice.

Then we headed back to Dad's for the rest of the celebration and the opening of the presents. As usual, we were all spoiled, especially the children. Ashleigh got a Nintendo DS. So far it is hard for her, but she'll get a hang of it. It would help if she could read!

The Harris Girls:

Ashleigh with Ally wearing PeyPey's new pink hat. Click on this one so you can see how LARGE Ally's eyes are!

I thought PeyPey looked so "her" in this one:

My lovely hubby being silly...he looks like a bat!

Addy opening her 1st present, she slept through most of the festivities since she stayed awake the whole time at the Gaylord being such a trooper! We were very proud of her!

Then we spent the day after Christmas with my Mom. She was supposed to be resting and recovering from her virus and that is why we decided to have cold cuts in lieu of a large Christmas dinner of turkey with all the trimmings. But she ended up cooking anyway...meatballs, sausage balls, dip, etc. It was all very delicious and I'm pretty sure we all averaged at least a 5 pound weight gain! Here's some shots at Mom's house:

Peyton and Addy, my little Munchie Munch:

Ash being her beautiful self, My green-eyed girl:

Needless to say, we had a great Christmas and we have a lot of cleaning out to do to make room for all of the new "stock" we brought home. Our house is simply not big enough for all of this stuff and it requires we rotate the stock at least once per year. But I'm not complaining, it only means we are all extremely blessed. Sometimes we forget how blessed we truly are, but we need to remind ourselves every once in a while so we don't lose sight of what's truly important.

Addy has cut her 11th tooth...her 1st bottom molar. Poor girl is cutting these teeth so fast it seems they are all coming it at the same time and she can't catch a break. Santa brought her LOTS of Tylenol in her stocking in an attempt to keep her pain free. That was generous of him, because he can't stand to see her suffer! She's been eating more and more table food, she really has a big desire for the table food, and I guess with all of those teeth, she is ready! She also started blowing kisses today. It's kind of a backward one, but I know what she's doing and it just melts my heart! My little baby is going to be a year old already in just a couple of short weeks and I can't tell you how this makes me feel. I'll go more into that on my next post, which will be my last one of the year and will close out Volume 1 of the Linder Family Blog. I will be making this blog into a book for the girls and it will go by year. I've already started it through blurb.com and look so forward to the girls being able to look back some day and reading about what their life was like when they were children. I think it's an awesome gift! Technology can be such a great thing!

Oh, a quick shout out to Ashleigh...my Dad threw a Christmas Party at his house last Monday and had all of the musicians do their thing and he wanted Ash to play her violin. We all know how her recital turned out so I wasn't sure she would do it. But she did!! She kept telling herself she wasn't going to cry, she watched the others play the piano, and she was so brave and got up there and played her song! We got it on video (thank you, Kevin!) and I'll post it next time with many other videos from the past month or so. I'm so proud of that girl!

Anyway, I hope you all are having a VERY Happy Holiday Season! I have to go back to work tomorrow, but am looking forward to seeing what the New Year has in store for the Linder Family. Sleep Tight!