Christmas Eve

Mike was on-call Christmas Eve so the kids and I struck off for 4:30 mass by ourselves......and HOLY MOLY!!!!  That was a cluster.  Standing room only would be an understatement.....we were kind of in the church and kind of outside.  The doors were open, as it couldn't hold everyone with the doors shut, so depending on how people were situated at the given moment depending on if I was in the door or half way out the door.  I had never been so happy to see communion, ever!

Once church was over I took the kids to pick up Little Caesars, as that's what they wanted.  But they were closed, so they settled for McDonalds.  I think Mike and I ate leftovers.....I can't fully remember, so it must not have been too scrumptious.

We came home, ate, played some games, and then watched Charlie Browns Christmas.  After the movie we prepped food for Christmas morning, made some reindeer food, laid out some cookies for Santa, and then hit the hay.

I'm not sure Maddie and Mike found Charlie Brown that exciting......

 

Santa's Workshop Gifts

This year everyone got to shop at Santa's Workshop.  I worked the 8:30-noon shift and Maddie got out of school at 11:00.  Once she got out of school, she came down and "helped" me.  Since she was present, I let her shop for Peyton, Jack, and Annie too.  We didn't have Gus yet when Santa's Workshop happened, so Annie had to share her new toys with Gus.

Christmas Eve, Mike worked all day and all night.  I passed some of the time by letting the kids exchange their Santa's Workshop gifts.  They really get a kick out of this.  They were all thrilled.

The only sad part was when Gus tore up Annie's new toy that Jack had bought her.  Gus is MUCH tougher on toys than Annie.  Jack's heart was broke, he cried when Gus tore up Annie's new toy.  ;-)  Maddie couldn't get enough of playing with the dogs with the toy she picked out for them.  They had it tore up by that night!  ha!

Jack was the sweetest.  They bring an envelope with them to school with a list of the people they should buy for and what their budget is on each person.  Jack told me, he spent a little less than his budget on each person cause he REALLY wanted to buy me something.  He was so excited to give me my beautiful ring he picked out for me!!!!  Sweetest guy around!!

Christmas Cookies 2016

Well, I think we were too busy making cookies, that we forgot to take any pictures.  We ran out of time before everyone had to leave so we split up the cut out cookies and the kids had to decorate those at their own houses.  My kids decorated theirs later that night, once I got the kitchen cleaned up and got the some counter space to work on.

Mom, Chris, Dawn and I did most of the cookies.  The kids played ping-pong, soccer,  pie face, and ran around.  Dad held down the couch and even made it up to bed for a nap.  He had his carpel tunnel surgery the day before and was still feeling the effect of his pain meds.

The only picture we managed to take of the actually "cookie making" was this one.  When the entire batch of cookies was a BUST!!!  Scraping them right into the trash......

Pie face kids.....

And finally, later that night.....cookie decorating.....

Christmas came early.....

The kids opened the Advent Calendar the Sunday before Christmas and it told them, "you will have an early Christmas present arrive today."

A friend of a friend was looking to re-home her 1 year old golden-doodle.  Same breeder and same size (well close, he's 10 pounds heavier) as Annie.  I went to pick him up and the kids were downstairs playing.  They came up and surprise!!  Gus was there!!

We've now had Gus for almost two weeks and he's been pretty great!  Annie and him get along great and they romp all day long!  Gus came to us pretty shaggy and matted, so we had to get him cleaned up.  The first night we had him he got a whack hair cut.  His hair was too matted to get thru it very good.  Then he got a bath and all cleaned up.  A week later, Mike gave him another hair cut and now he's looking good!

Our only complaint about Gus is he is a "happy pee-er."  He pees when anyone new walks in the house.  Annoying!  He's getting better with us, we aren't as exciting anymore.  He only pees about 30% of the time for us now.  We've had to train the kids to come in calmly and ignore him, so we don't excite him too much when we get home.  This has been an adjustment, as we use to come in hooting and hollering and pumping Annie up.  Now we have to come in so boring.....

Gus is getting trained on the electric fence this week, so his world is about to get even better!!

Shaggy Gus, I'm not sure he could even see through all that hair!!!

 
Annie and Gus meeting and playing for the first time......

Phase 1 hair cut......

Phase 2.....all done, except a few matts that still need a little work or might just end up having to be cut out.

2nd USTA Tournament

Jack played in his second USTA tournament a couple weekends ago.  He's having a lot of fun with tennis.  His first match was against one of our friends that he plays tennis with all summer long and then they take tennis lessons together once, sometimes twice a week.  They are VERY close in level and any time they play on any given day it could go either way. On this given day, it was Jack's turn.....
He took this selfie of himself to send to me, as I had to miss his championship match to take Peyton to her soccer game.

Breakfast with Santa

A couple weekends ago we had breakfast with Santa and Westborough.  Jack had a tough call to make.  His basketball team had made it to the championship game of a tournament, but the game was the same time as breakfast with Santa.  We gave him the choice, he chose his basketball game after hard thought.  He was able to sneak in a visit with Santa quick, he just couldn't stay for breakfast and the magic show.  He ultimately made the right choice, as they ended up winning the tournament!

The girls and I stayed for breakfast while the boys went to the basketball game.  All three went right up to the big man and rattled off what they wanted.  Visiting Santa isn't quite as fun(ny) with bigger kids that aren't afraid of the big guy.....pictures aren't nearly as good either, without a screaming child.