Busy Three Days!

I'll tell y'all about Casey's Car and about Christian Brothers tomorrow or the next day. Promise. Still deciding on what we will do with the options offered to us by Christian Brothers.

What I do want to share with y'all now is the great time the boys and I have had the last several days. Saturday the boys and I had my brother and sister in-law over along with their grandkids. We had such a great time. Their grandkids love Casey and Charlie, follow them around like pups, but they especially love Charlie. All kids love Charlie. We played Skip Bo, and both the kids were on Charlie's team, with my sister-in-law, Gail, and I on one team (and geeze, did we come in a far last...completely my fault) and Casey and his Uncle Larry on another team. Charlie's team won...lol. It was a lot of fun! My nephews daughter (what does that make her to me? My great niece?), Jane, and I iced some mini brownies and put candy Santa's on top of them. Jane and I took them, along with some sugar cookies and 'trash' I'd made the night before for my in-laws and my neighbors, to several of my neighbors houses. Jane was so cute! She had red icing on her cheek and her chin, and she was wearing one of my aprons. My neighbors just thought she was adorable!
Here are a couple of pictures of them that Gail said I could share.













This is Elijah, he's 8

















and this is Jane, she's 9.

Let's see...the next day, Sunday, was Christmas Eve and Charlie's birthday. We were serving at church for the first service, and no...I took no falls! I did however, have a blast! I wish I'd thought to have taken my camera. It was so cool. They'd built an old fashioned front of a cabin with a beautiful old sleigh in front of it with a picket fence and snow on the ground. Every few minutes, snow would fall from the ceiling, it was gorgeous! Families would get in the sleigh with their kids and have people take pictures of them, so cool. Anyway, out in the parking lot, my kids and others were serving hot cider, there were carollers, and I was serving Christmas cookies inside to people as they came in...where it was warm. :) Watching the little kids coming in, all dressed up in their Christmas best...seeing the snow falling inside, and their eyes light up when they were offered these big Christmas cookies. It was the best! Later, we did Charlie's birthday at home, here's a pic of my guys and their dad:




























This is most of Charlie's b'day present. The guys have explained to me several times what it's called...but still, no clue. I just signed the check. :) I think it's called a 1/2 cab.

So, today is Christmas and we've had a really great day. The boys and I mostly gave each other a lot of love for Christmas, and it was a really great Christmas! I don't know what I was so concerned about, honestly, I don't give my kids enough credit sometimes. All day long they kept hugging me, telling me how much they loved me and how this was the best Christmas, and they were right. We spend so much more time together than we use to, we're much closer than we use to be, and there is more laughter in our home than ever before. Love is a wonderful thing.
Here are some pictures from today:












Casey opening a gift.













Charlie tearing into a gift, lol, he tried...but Casey had wrapped it with reinforced tape and it took him about 5 minutes to get into it. In fact, Casey had wrapped it twice...












Casey giving his girl, Daisy, her gift. Daisy was Casey's Christmas gift 11 years ago.












Porter with his...













and Rocky with his. Rocky, was Charlie's Christmas gift, again, 11 years ago.
All the while they're chewing away on these rawhides...I just kept thinking how glad I am that I bought that carpet cleaner!

We've tried to go to see Charlie's birthday movie twice, but could barely find a parking space, so we've decided to wait till maybe tomorrow after he get's off work to go. He's picked Night At the Museum as his birthday movie. It was a toss up between that and Black Christmas for him (go ahead and laugh...I do).

So, that about covers it for us. Been a wonderfully blessed three days here. Can't think of one bad thing, really. All good. We've watched A Christmas Story probably 4 times, and still laughing at it. Watched Bad Santa a couple of times...and still laughing at it, too. C'mon, it's Billy Bob Thornton...you've gotta laugh.

Hope y'all had as good a Christmas as we did. Hope your coming year is as full of love as our home is. Lot's of big hugs to each of you. God bless you all!