Christmas 2015

Ready for the onslaught of photos?!  Christmas 2015 was wonderful.  It was filled with love, happiness, gifts, church, and laughter.  It was different from previous years as we were not at my mom's house on Christmas Eve, but we made the most of the situation.

Settle in.  There's a lot of pictures!

The sorting of piles began on Wednesday night.  Eric got the most!  (It's pretty fun to be able to shop for him with all the weight he has lost!)

 I HATE wrapping presents.  I hate it with a passion.  This was the bottom of a box.  You don't see the bottom.  What's the point in wrapping the bottom, especially if you don't have enough paper?  I certainly was not going to start over!

I went for a run on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.  I had an encounter with my dad.  You can read about it HERE.

We went to Christmas Eve Mass, and I loved it!  It was overflowing with people and lights and beautiful music.  I was very much at peace.

We came home and the boys all got new pajama pants.  Eric and his mini me.

My handsome boys.

A Christmas Eve selfie.  I seriously need a selfie stick.  It's hard to fit us all in to one photo with the difference in heights!

We enjoyed snacks after church for our dinner.  (We went out for a late pizza lunch earlier in the day.)

Hudson is never too far from his tablet.  The screen cracked a few days ago when he balanced it on a chair and it fell off.  Little did he know he was getting a repurposed iPad for Christmas!

Buddy was sniffing all around the good food.

Eric wasn't feeling well all day, so he faded pretty fast on Christmas Eve.  I was the last one awake to play Santa.  I entertained myself by taking selfies.

I was just so busy and behind all during this season, that I never got to stop to enjoy this scene right here.  This cozy feeling was what I craved all December.  It's okay...I got it on Dec. 24!

My decorations were in slightly different places this year because of the restructuring of our house.

I was really pleased with how the house turned out this Christmas.  It was pretty and cozy.

I hope Santa comes to visit.  Little did I know, I would be very spoiled on Christmas Day!

Yep, we were all pretty spoiled!

My home.

Christmas morning watching the kids pass out presents.

Hudson's pile is growing!

He was pretty excited.

Yeah, my wrapping skills are so good that the boxes were falling apart as Evan was passing them out!

Dad ready to take pictures.

Another one of my fine wrapping jobs there on the couch.  How in the world do you wrap a giant blanket?

Eric's pile.

Hudson checks out his stocking.

One tradition we kept from my childhood was opening presents one at a time.  Hudson starts because he is the youngest.

The boys gave each other gift cards for Christmas.

Wal Mart money! Yay!

Evan got iTunes from Hudson.

Eric opened his blanket and is being rather stingy and refusing to share it with his loving wife!

The kids got flying saucers.  They are pretty cool and you control it with pressure from your hand.

Hudson got new Adidas shoe and wore them all day, even with pajamas!

Oh the mess!  Doesn't it look like we had a good Christmas?

One thing I am extremely grateful for is that we have zero debt from Christmas.  It is such a good feeling to have planned all year, spent within a budget, bought plenty of presents, and enjoyed the day knowing we will never see a credit card statement wanting money from stuff we bought in December.  The BEST feeling.

I got Skechers walking shoes, and I love them!  So comfortable!

Dad joins in on the fun playing with the flying saucers.

I made monkey bread for breakfast.  Good stuff.

Hudson and I snuggled by the fire.

Harry was not about to miss out on warmth and snuggles.

I love this beautiful little face.

One side effect of losing so much weight is that Eric is cold all the time.  He didn't have his own blanket, so he got a giant one for Christmas.  He can wrap himself up completely in this thing!

And he refuses to share it with me!  Stingy!  It's a King Size for goodness sake!

Congratulations if you made it this far in the photos!  It was a great holiday with my family of four.