Christmas

Ahh. Sitting down. I suppose I've been doing a lot of that the last several days. These holidays haven't been hectic at all, actually. My dear Hubby has gotten up with the boys every morning since ... I've almost lost count. I guess it's only been four. But what a luxury! I've slept until I woke up on my very own. Sadly, my internal clock has been adjusted so that I can't really sleep later than 9 anyways. Most days I've been up since then. Once I even just laid there enjoying the tranquility for another hour. I'm sure I dozed off a time or two. Thanks so much Hubby. It was especially nice as Marty was up every 1-2 hours from Thurs-Sat nights. He had his shots that day so I think he's over the trauma now.

Our Christmas celebrating began with a nice morning service at church. Well, I hear it was nice. I was down in the kitchen putting cinnamon buns in the oven and heating up apple cider. It was a full house and every last crumb was eaten up. PZ and I are just now wondering if the leftover cider is still sitting on the stove there. It's probably cooled off by now. :) Paul's sister Deb arrived from Vancouver during the service and helped me with the finishing touches. Off to church again in the evening after an early dinner. Max managed to sit still for most of the service and only got squirrely at the end. We came home and relaxed a little bit. We decided not to do gifts until after Max's nap on Christmas Day. After a leisurely morning we kicked into gear while he slept. He woke up to a cozy welcome with the lights low and all the gifts under the tree. Then the fun began. He was thrilled with all his gifts, and the favourite was his 100 PIECE set of play food and groceries. (The Thomas undies were pretty exciting too.) After gifts we had a traditional Madland/Norwegian appetizer meal. We had honey garlic meatballs, mini quiche, stuffed mushrooms, shrimp ring, brie with bread, marshmallow salad (not ambrosia - this is much yummier!). I discovered that there are different levels of HOT for cocktail sauce. It seems I chose the one that said "Extra hot". I won't make that mistake again. Oh ya, after dinner we opened stockings.

Paul was very brave and bought me several things that were not on my wish list! I was very pleased with his choices ... (even though we had agreed that our Christmas gift to each other was the new TV we bought in November.)









(Here we are on Christmas Eve. Marty didn't want to bend so he looks a little goofy.)


In the days following we have been relaxing like royalty. Paul finished off the Lee Valley tool catalogue puzzle I got him (and a Roll-O-Puzz - great for doing puzzles when little ones are around) and we've started another one borrowed from Mom & Dad.