Week 94

Dec 22-28

Merry Christmas!

We spent Christmas Eve as a family and enjoyed our usual fun family holiday traditions. We watched Christmas movies, wrapped presents, and drank in celebration of togetherness! After having four days in a row off of work I had to go in on Christmas day. Luckily I work the 11am-11pm shift so I didn't have to leave the house until 10:00 in the morning...giving me plenty of time to wake up and open presents with the boys.

Ed and I decided we would set our alarms and wake up before Jack usually gets up. We really wanted the chance to make some coffee, turn on all the Christmas lights, and make sure everything was perfect when Jack walked down the stairs.

He woke up right on time, just as we expected. It was so much fun to go get him and walk with him down the steps. He could see his choo-choo table right away, but the top of it was wrapped so he wasn't quite sure what to think. He walked right over to it and started ripping off paper in pure excitement! Honestly, I think we could have left it at that because once he saw the table and realized that I had put some of his trains in the drawer, he was set!

We had to pull him away from playing to start opening more presents. Once he finally figured out that every time he opened a present most of them were MORE "choo-choo's" he was willing to participate in the unwrapping process.

We ended up having plenty of time to open all of our presents and eat breakfast. After all of the excitement it was time for me to shower and head to the E.R. for the day and into the evening. It was basically a blur as usual because it was super busy. It really didn't feel like Christmas to me after I left the house. Oh well. The life of a nurse. I was lucky enough to get Christmas off last year so I had to do my duty.

The next day Ed's mom (Grandma to Jack) and Harvin came over from their hotel. They had driven down to FL from SC the previous day. We basically had Christmas all over again. :) It was a nice time! Jack got lots of fun new toys and of course a complete Ralph Lauren Polo outfit from Harvin. That night we went to The Charthouse for dinner (Jack wore his new outfit...I even found him some Sperry's to match).

Dinner was nothing short of delicious! Here are some pictures of everyone. These lovely picture include the sword fight between Jack and his Grandma while we were all having our impeccable Godiva chocolate lava cake. Yum! Jack definitely approved.

The next day we went through more of the presents and put stuff together. Jack helped Grandma and Harvin put together his Rescue Set. Later that day more family came by including Ed's Aunt Kathy, Uncle John, Cousins Ashleigh, Alyssa, and Jonathan, and Ashleigh's husband Jason. It was nice to see them! First we had yet another round of Christmas and then we hung out. We had a fun time playing board games, eating pizza, and drinking drinks!

Jack was hilarious when he opened presents. He even showed off his favorite new thing to do. I'll let the picture speak for itself.

To conclude this post we had a Very Merry Christmas this year! It was very sad to see everyone leave and be once again stranded in Florida away from our family, but Ed and I both take comfort in the fact that this is probably our last Christmas in Florida. Hopefully next year we will be in SC with our families surrounding us. Who knows what next year will bring? This year has been very good to us.

Thank you to all of our families and friends for the Christmas gifts. We thoroughly enjoyed each and every thing we got. We hope you and yours had a Very Merry Christmas as well!!!