Christmas

Every year at Christmas I always get so stressed out and end up not enjoying Christmas as much as I should. This year I have to say was really different. We did all the same things we always do but it was different, I don't know if it was because of Cooper or just seeing things a little differently. I made 9 different kinds of cookies, baked banana bread, made Krumkaka with mom and made two batches of Chex mix. This did stress me out a little bit because I had a deadline of Wednesday night because Rob was giving some of the cookies to his employees for their presents. But I still enjoyed baking them, the late nights got to me though. Dad, Christy and I did our tradition of going shopping for mom on Christmas eve morning. They came out to our house at 6:00 and Rob watched both babies while we had breakfast at Perkins, shopped and wrapped the presents. We stopped at my aunt Anne and Uncle Denny's house for a short visit before we headed to mom and dad's for our Christmas Eve tradition. We have oyster stew, read the Christmas story and open presents. James and Natalie always stop over with their boys so we can exchange Christmas presents with them. Having the boys over gave us a glimpse of what our Christmases are going to be like in the future with two kids running around. Christmas morning I got up made us a nice breakfast, we opened stockings from Santa and just relaxed. Then got ready for all of Rob's family to come over to open presents and for dinner. We opened presents for about an hour and a half before Cindy, Doug and Brian came over and we still weren't done. I always enjoy watching people open the gifts we bought for them. This year was no different. When ever we asked Tim what he wanted for Christmas he only said one thing. An Vikings Adrian Peterson jersey. So to be funny Rob made him a Peterson Jersey from an old t-shirt and told him that we couldn't afford the real thing. So after he didn't have any presents left to open I brought out one last present that we forgot to give him - the real Peterson jersey! At least we thought it was funny. Dinner was great! Everyone brought something and thankfully Grandma Charlene helped with the gravy. I was nervous to make the gravy by myself, I have never done it without my mom's help.

So even though we did a lot for Christmas it was probably the best one I can remember. Even though Cooper had no idea what was going on and slept most of the time, it was so amazing having him there with us. He did attempt to tear at a couple pieces of wrapping paper and seemed to enjoy all the attention he got.