christmas...finally!!

It's taken me a few weeks to sort through Christmas pictures and regroup from "the most wonderful time of the year!" True to Brown Family form, we spent much of our holiday on the road so it takes a little time to get back into a routine. You throw a few birthdays in the mix, a few snow days in there too, and you've got a delay in blog postings!

I'm going to be honest right up front - I want a "do over" for some parts of our Christmas celebration! Keep reading and I think you'll understand...

We always look forward to Christmas with Lee's family because our time together brings a great amount of excitement and adventure. The days together are usually full of food and laughter, kids and dogs, a hayride and bingo tournament, gingerbread house decorating, and lots of harassment - all done in love, of course! The icing on the cake this year was the highly anticipated idea of a true White Christmas!!

This year, however, was quite different...

The weekend began on course, but took a drastic detour when "Victim 1" began to show signs of a stomach bug on Christmas Eve. The signs quickly turned into the real deal and we were one man down! Around midnight "Victim 2" sprang from her bed to see what was the matter - but not because of a clatter out on the lawn! More like a rumbling in the tummy. And I'm sad to say that "Victim 2" was my Addie girl! She was hit hard with the bug and we spent the next few hours in the bathroom. I had to go downstairs to put some stuff in the washing machine and found "Victim 3" sitting up in the chair in the den - he had been hit too! - and Victim 4 in the downstairs bathroom showing a few signs of the plague. No sooner than I could get Addie settled back down, I began feeling like I was falling prey to the ickyness and before I knew it - I was hit and became Victim 5!

Needless to say, Addie and I barely made it downstairs Christmas morning to see the goods that all the kiddos got! We spent the entire day in bed and everyone else decided to leave the party early and our fun family gathering came to a quick halt! And the worst part of all (well kind of!) - is that it actually snowed and it was my first white Christmas!!

Here are a few pictures before things got ugly...





the gingerbread house and tree decorating...



The girls eating their favorite Christmas snack - Puppy Chow! Look at the mess!

After a day home to recover from the plague, we repacked and reloaded and headed south to spend some time with my family!

We drove all day on Ellee's birthday so when we got to Grandpa & Mimi's house, Mimi had cupcakes made for Ellee and we had a quick birthday party...




Later in the week, we took all the kiddos to Monkey Joe's so we could celebrate Ellee's birthday "kid style"...






Addie met her newest cousin, Paul, for the first time over Christmas and Ellee had only seen him once before. They just couldn't get enough of Paul while we were together, but can you blame them? Isn't he scrumptious!!





I have fond memories of New Year's Day dinner at my Pop & Nana Raith's house. We always had the "traditional" New Year's dinner of pork, mashed potatoes with gravy, greens, sauerkraut, and cornbread! It is one of my favorite meals! My Pop would always carve the meat and all the grandkids would stand around him for a picture and he'd sneak us some pork while our moms weren't looking. My mom duplicated this meal perfectly and Dad settled into his place at the carving station while his grandkids gathered around. (You'll notice that we are one monkey short in the picture - my nephew, Charles, just wasn't in the mood for a picture!)

Like her mom used to do with Pop, Ellee hung around a bit longer in hopes of an extra sample!

Hope you've enjoyed a little glimpse into our Christmas and New Year! Now I'm off to celebrate another snow day home with my girls! Here's what we created on our day off yesterday...