'Twas the night before Christmas...2012

Moses, Connor, Noah, Payton, Wil, Rachel, Maddi (missing little Owen)

I have said it many times before, but Christmas Eve is my favorite night of the year.  I love being with my Dad's family for the night and I love being able to attend Christmas Eve service at the church I grew up in.  I am a big family girl...and this night gives me a chance to forget that we are all grown up, that we have experienced loss and that I really live four hours away!  

Once we are all together, we have a total of 8 kids....I am so thankful that a few of them are starting to age out of that crazy phase....unfortunately, my boys are still in it so Christmas Eve is a little bit of an anxious time....each year I just know that someone is going to knock down my Mom's Christmas tree....I hope that day never comes...but I run around like a chicken with my head cut off making sure no sweet children a playing where they should not.  Another year survived with nothing broken! 

The kids exchanged small presents and the adults got to catch up a little.  We ate the world's best chicken pie!  We all headed off the church and filled up nearly two rows this year.  My grandma would be so proud!  Payton snuck away and sat with his big cousins...even while lighting his candle to sing Silent Night...and the church survived too!   People who watched Owen during the service laughed and told me how cute he was...I am pretty certain that is their polite way of telling me that they are so happy that we only make it to church a few times a year and that yes, he is adorable, but I have absolutely no parenting skills and my child is out.of.control....yes, that is what their little smile and nod tells me!  One lady, who has always been known to be a little  rude blunt called it like it was and was quick to tell me that I sure did have my hands full.  Yes Ma'am, hands full, with two wild boys!  

Back to Christmas....

After the service we headed back to Grandma's for dessert...my cousin's wife, Terra, makes the best red velvet cake....I may even be from a box, but it is so good!  Payton ate TWO pieces!  

Owen seems to be having a serious conversation with my favorite uncle, Uncle Alfred, my Dad's younger brother. 

How did this family end up with so many boys?  SIX boys
Moses, Connor, Noah, Owen, Payton, Wil

After desert, the boys and I got our yearly Christmas PJ's from grandma and grandpa. 

Christmas Eve 2012 was a little different....not soooo different, because this Mommy is not a fan of change....but, instead of rushing from the Christmas Eve service in SF back to my parents for dessert and pajamas and then loading up the car and driving to EB at 11:00 at night...reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in the car and getting snug in our beds sometime well after midnight....we decided we would spend the night, just as our little family of four, at the lake house.  It seemed like a great idea!

We got to the lake house pretty late....around 11:00 I think...and the boys were excited to see that we had a Christmas tree decorated, Clyde was waiting for them for one last night and their stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there!

For the first time ever, the boys got to put out cookies and "milk" for Santa in the same place that they would be sleeping....and for the 1st time, Mommy and Daddy got to sit up and look for Santa too!

Unfortunately, we missed one key ingredient for cookies and milk...the milk....oops! Turns out, Santa likes Capri Suns too!  We sprinkled reindeer food outside too!

One last Christmas Eve picture...one our first Christmas Eve ever where we would spend the night with just our family and where Santa would actually leave our toys for us to see first thing in the morning!  The boys were so excited!

It was WAY past their bedtime so even with all the excitement they went to bed pretty quickly.  Santa's elves were fast at work.  The boys were so excited to find that they had left exactly what they asked for on Christmas morning.  

The elves went to bed extra late!

This is where the story gets a little exciting.....despite the fact that we decided to stay at the lake we still had to be up extra early so we could be back in EB for breakfast at Mawmaw's by 9:00 (which is much later than our normal 7:30 start!).  With a little over an hour drive, we wanted to hit the road by 7:30.  Being the morning person I am (not), I jumped out of bed at 5:30...or was it 5:15...it was awfully early!  As I turned on the shower, I thought to myself that something smelled bad...like rotten eggs bad.  There was a cup in the shower, so my slightly irrational thinking told me that there was something dead in the cup...we've had a little mouse issue, so I convinced myself there was a dead mouse.  Of course, I didn't dare look, I just tried to hurry as fast as I could...and planned to report my findings to Chad.  The mouse theory seemed a little crazy...especially since the smell kept getting worse.  So bad in fact, that I thought I was going to vomit and kept my mouth completely shut (like I think you would do if traveling to a 3rd world country).  Irrational thoughts continued to race through my mind.  I showered as fast as humanly possible...convienced I was getting some water-borne illness along the way.  

My fears were affirmed when I finished the shower and Chad threw the door open asking what the awful smell was...I knew then that it wasn't a little dead mouse but a much bigger problem.  The smell had invaded the entire house....and it was strong....strong, foul smelling rotten eggs.  

We had to go ahead and get the boys up so they could see what Santa had brought for them...but, we also had to vacate!  I was adamant that my husband and children were not going to shower in that illness infested shower....so, all of the Christmas day clothes I had so neatly laid out the night before had to be crammed back into bags, suitcases had to be loaded back into the car and we had to head to EB to shower for the day.  

As the boys enjoyed their Santa presents, I was in a panic mode...what had I just showered in?  What was in the water?  Was I going to get sick immediately and spend Christmas day in the hospital?  Was I going to die?  For real, these are the thoughts running through my head as the boys found their gifts...the exciting morning that I was so happy to finally have for my family was not exactly what I had pictured in my head.  

It all worked out.  We made it to EB in time to shower and get to Mawmaw's by 9:00....and, thanks to google, I learned on the way up I-77 that the "rotten egg smell in well water" can actually be linked to heat pumps that aren't frequently used.....I quickly decided I was not going to die but instead realized Allen was going to have do a little work on the water system at the lake.  Crisis averted...aside from smelling like a rotten egg all day (though others claimed they did not smell me) and aside from over-reacting a little, we survived and Christmas went on just as planned.

After all, Christmas is about a lot more than my boys Santa presents, my long hot shower and things going according to plan...and, it made for a pretty good laugh through the day.  

The water is now fixed and if we spend the night there next Christmas, I'll try the hot water the night before :)