"Merry Julianuary"

It's taken me a while to get back to blogging. Mostly because I wasn't exactly sure what to say about our holidays. ha ha.
My mom came to visit for the week before Christmas. We were all very excited to see her. The kids had fun giving her their ritual tour of the house, the moment she arrived. (she gets one every time she comes to visit.) The kids were getting over colds/strep/whatever they had, so we spent most of the time indoors. Mom and I 'got' to do our shopping late at night and it was fun to spend some one on one time with just her.
My kids were of course, on the naughty list, probably at the very top in bold writing. However, they didn't care because they are not that dumb. They know Grandma is here and she brought them enough presents that it didn't matter what Santa brought!! Dang her. :)
We managed to get her sick. (It's basically another tradition when she comes to visit now. ) Either that or it rains the entire time she's here. ha ha.
We did get out for dinner once and saw the Princess and the Frog. Despite the crazy voodoo stuff, it was a really cute movie and we left looking for frogs to kiss.
We had our little Christmas with her and I was glad she could see how happy the kids were to open presents and just to have her here.

Here the kids are counting their money!! They were both taking antibiotics and it was such an ordeal to do it that mom finally said she'd give them a dollar every time they took it without crying and all the drama that came with it. It was mostly Payton having a hard time. Hello..we know medicine doesn't taste good, it's not supposed to. Halle just got paid to be nice. They had about 10 dollars. Thankfully for Grandma, she came when they were almost done. :) They wanted to take their money and go buy bikes. We've since convinced them to live more within their means. I'm thinking more, a book. :)
Mom left a few days before Christmas and we headed up to Andy's parents with the rest of the gang. This is what a tree looks like with tons of people. Can't remember the exact number, something like 23-25 ??? I've never seen that many presents in my life. Course I'm an only child. ha ha.
Andy and his dad went goose hunting Christmas Eve morning. They came home with about 6. Can't remember why he didn't cook the 'Christmas Goose' but we had a very yummy dinner of Turkey and all the trimmings that come with it. Including Grandma Gold's china. We were very Fancy Nancy. We had our program and sang carols before piling all the kids in their sleeping bags. Our current fav is 'Merry Madagascar'. The kids watched it several times before falling asleep.
It was fun the next morning to see ALL the kids so excited. So fun that I forgot to take pictures. ha ha. I think I have like 2. Oops! Oh well, it was Merry all the same.
I did get one pic of Halle in her princess dress. She got a princess trunk of dresses and shoes.
Payton got an art set and he and Halle were both spoiled by all the family. Ha ha....this pic is from Thanksgiving but I felt bad I didn't have one of him to post. :) Seriously, why didn't I take pictures???? :)
Most likely cause the kids spent all most all their time just playing with cousins. Nothin's more important than family anyway, right? :)
Thankfully they soaked up all the fun they could cause we spent the rest of the holidays SICK. Andy got pneumonia, the kids and I got 'new' YUCKY colds, then the flu, then colds again, and to top it all off, Halle some how contracted head lice. The last two weeks have been just.........uh......awesome. Thankfully, Andy's family has been very helpful and now that EVERYTHING in my entire house has been vacuumed and washed about 67 times, I am slowly starting to gain my sanity back.
So if you didn't receive our Christmas card, that's because this month has been a blur and I plead insanity. I did however, find them 3 days ago underneath a pile-all ready to go. :)
So we hope you had a wonderful Christmas/New Years and wish you a very 'Merry Julianuary!'
(Madagascar baby!)
(All doped up on cold medicine! 2009) :)