Sunday, December 19
The week kicked off by dressing Owen in his Christmas outfit from Grandma Pool for church. For the month of December at church, groups of carolers and instrumentalists have been playing Christmas carols in the commons. I was asked to play my violin, so Owen hung out with daddy while I
Tuesday, December 21
I admit, I have no patience. As soon as I start seeing present under the tree, I want to open them. G&G Pool sent a big box full of gifts for Owen, and I convinced William he really needed to open one early. So this was Owen's first Christmas gift - a cute blanket with owls that says Whoo loves me? We also went to All Things Kids and I found this cute hat for $1! I know the kid has lots of hats, but how cute is that thing?
Thursday, December 23Time for another gift, right? :) This one was a DVD set of all the Christmas classics like Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. We put it in immediately and watched a few of them. Well, Owen didn't really watch.
I also finally decided on Owen's new carseat. I've been hemming and hawing over this. I had narrowed it down to the Britax Marathon and the Graco My Ride 65. I hate to admit that it was coming down to the fact that I just didn't love Britax's prints (I love the cowmooflauge, but William said no way) and the fact that it didn't have a cup holder. But then I looked on Amazon and saw that it was $80 less than the list cost. Not only that, but if I ordered that day, it came with a free cup holder that clips onto the seat. And because I bought it through my Amazon Mom account, I now have free 2-day shipping for a whole YEAR!! I couldn't buy it fast enough. Thursday evening, the boys arrived in town, so we headed over to my parent's house for some Monicals thin crust sausage pizza, a family favorite.Friday, December 24
Merry Christmas Eve! The car seat arrived!! You read that correctly, I hit send on Thursday and it arrived on Friday. I love Amazon! We just hung out as our family and helped Owen open some books and a few toys from us. Then we got dressed and ready to head over to my family's big Christmas. Christmas Eve has always been a bigger deal in our house and I must admit it's one of my favorite days of the year!
It couldn't have been a more perfect Christmas Eve with the beautiful snow that was coming down all day.
We arrived to the Christmas music playing and just as it was time to light the fire. Owen wasn't so sure about the heat coming from the fire, it seemed to enjoy looking at it. The boys played a game of Rummikub, a family favorite. William's doing a little better about enjoying games, although he doesn't have the Hoerr competitive gene. 
The table was getting set with all the fondue pots with oil. Owen had a quick dinner of butternut squash and pears while all the lights were still on.
I'm not sure the year that we started the fondue tradition. But I have a feeling it will be around for a long time and probably even carried into our own individual families. We're up to 3 pots of oil and we cook shrimp, chicken, and steak. Yes, all in the same pot, and yes sometimes the raw meat gets on our plate, and no, no one has even gotten sick. :) We usually do this meal by candle light and it's accompanied by mom's raspberry punch, raspberry jello, veggies, and potatoes. Of course, there's chocolate fondue for dessert. After dinner, we gave Owen a quick bath. He loved the big tub and toy time.
We headed back downstairs to start the evening. Dad read the Christmas story. Then, we went around the room and shared something we were thankful for this year (OWEN!) and something we were anticipating/looking forward to/needed prayer about in the upcoming year. In other words, break out the Kleenex. My dad is kinda writing a book called The Things I Wish Series. Each Christmas, we get a chapter which he reads to us and again usually calls for the box of tissues. After reading that and some prayer, it was time for gifts. Yes, we go one at a time and I love that it draws out the process. Owen had no idea what was going on, but it was fun nonetheless. He loved all the toys he got and especially the hat made by Casey.
After a wonderful time of getting completely spoiled by my parents (see next post for the actual gift recap), we got Owen to bed and ate some great chocolate fondue. Then, we settled in the for the movie Inception. I had seen it yet, and whoa. Good movie, but I hate when movies end that way! Or maybe it didn't end and I was just dreaming. :)We got home around midnight and got Owen back to sleep. And just as we were headed to bed ourselves, William asked if I wanted to open our gifts. I'll never turn that down! We were supposed to have a VERY limited budget which I stuck to, but my hubby was bad and blew it out of the water. Again, see my next post for details on the awesome things he got me! Then it was finally time for bed.
Saturday, December 25
With the snow coming down all night and my new tires still not on my car, we thought we wouldn't be going to Peoria. So, we took our time lounging around in our pj's in the morning. We Skyped with the Pool's in Texas. They enjoyed seeing him open the rest of his gifts from them and checking out his new car seat.
But then I started feeling like it wouldn't be Christmas without heading to Peoria. So, we scrambled around and got ready and on the road in record time. The roads were perfectly clear, and I'm glad we went. Owen was the only little person there as it was a TINY crowd for us. Great Grandpa snagged Owen right away as we helped ourselves to appetizers and jumped into the game of Bag of Nouns that was in progress.
We had fun just hanging out with everyone, even though the dinner was probably the "worst dinner yet." Di summed it up by pointing to the lid which was titled BBQ sauce (with meat).
After dinner and way too much dessert (cut out cookies yum), we headed back downstairs for "gifts." Back in the day, this part of the day consisted of hours around a Christmas tree (there's not a tree to be found these days) with mounds of gifts, lots of yelling, and pretty much chaos. Now that everyone just gets checks, Grandma had to invent a game. So each year we lay the box game. Everyone passes around a box with a die in it. If you roll a 6, you get to go to the middle where a pair of gloves and a gift waits. You have to put on the gloves and then try to unwrap the gift. Sounds pretty easy right? NOT. Grandma wraps that sucker with duct tape and ties the twine really tight. And it's not only one box. Oh, no. . .there's usually around 8. This year, Kaley got the last box open and got the $20 bill.
All in all, a great day. And after about 10 minutes of screaming, Owen passed out and slept the whole way home. I am not kidding. This is the first time he's really slept in his car seat (it was still his bucket, not his new one). I hate how quickly Christmas goes each year. I think I'll keep my decorations up for another month at least.
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