Christmas Vacation

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that we are waiting to do Christmas until Ty gets home, so our holiday season was a bit awkward this year.

We went over to the Anderson's for Christmas Eve dinner and then attended the service that our church was hosting. It was very cold and windy when we went in to church and an hour later, when we were walking out, it was a complete blizzard! That night we got at least 6 inches of fresh snow and in the morning, it started back up again. It was a true White Christmas- very beautiful!

The morning of the 25th, the kids and I woke up, business as usual. We got to chat with some family and the kids got to open several presents. Not all of them but, just enough to keep them quiet and busy for hours. That evening we went over to a fellow spouses house for dinner and birthday cake. Her husband is also deployed so we sat and exchanged recipes while the kids watched Elmo. Bah Humbug, huh Amber! The kids didn't have a clue what was going on as far as not celebrating. Carter completely supports the decision of waiting for Daddy to get home and Whitleigh got to watch a new Elmo movie, so really, it was the greatest day EVER in her mind! I would say overall, it was a strange day. I wasn't sure what kind of feelings to have. There was such an emptiness with everything; I did my best to keep my concentration on the kids. They were both overflowing with excitement and joy because we FINALLY got to open some of the presents that had been sitting under our tree for what felt like an eternity!

On the 27th, my parents flew out to Boise for a visit but, due to bad weather, I was unable to go and pick them up until the next morning. Once we got back here to our house, the kids got to open all of their presents from Papa and G. Oh my goodness! Mayhem! Carter went from one thing to the next. He tried out everything, would work to master it and then move to the next and start all over again. Whitleigh was hung up on her baby cradle. She had successfully put 8 babies inside of it and then kept walking around the room telling everyone to "shhhh" because her babies were sleeping. It was so much fun to have my parents here and for the kids to have some different company, other than boring old Mom!

Needless to say, we filled our week with games, outside fun, crafts, shopping, naps, football, yummy food, shoveling the walks, and a few more naps! We rang in the New Year, which was such an amazing feeling! It was finally the same month that Ty would be coming home! I never thought 2009 would be here! On the 2nd, we took my parents back to the airport and said goodbye. It was so good to have them here, it helped the week just fly by!

Carter started back up to school today and hopefully within the next 2-3 weeks we'll be able to have a homecoming celebration at our house and also "Our Christmas" to share with you all! We're almost there...