Merry Christmas, everyone!!  We had a wonderful day, starting bright and early this morning with gifts at Mark's Mom's house.  Zack was ecstatic about his Hot Wheels Trick Track from Santa Claus and his Transformers.  He (rather, Mark, Mike and I) spent most of the day transforming them back and forth.  Xander was thrilled to get a Clipo table from Santa and a ride-on John Deere tractor.  The best part for him, though, was opening the presents.  He loved helping everyone else open theirs, too.  Mark was pretty excited about getting a Garmin heart rate monitor with GPS.  I had also gotten him a second storage cabinet for our porch, and, rather than waste an entire roll or more of wrapping paper on the box, I made a lego replica of it, complete with tools inside.  Mark's brother Mike got a Wii, which we used to get a bit of a muscle workout, bowling, boxing and playing tennis and baseball.  My big gift was a new digital camera--it's small and it's PINK!!!  Mark also got me a new George Foreman grill with removable plates--no more washing the grill on the side of the sink!  I made a picture frame for my sister Eileen with pictures of us at my first Christmas, my wedding shower, and at Thanksgiving.  I used Printshop, and it said "Having a sister is like having a best friend for life."  When she opened it, she cried!  Even though we hated each other growing up, becoming parents and settling down has brought us really close.

We were so blessed that we were able to spend time both with Mark's family and mine.  I missed having a big, chaotic, noisy dinner with my family, but the time we got over there was lots of fun.  We also were saddened by not having Mom and Mark's dad with us.  Even though this was our fifth Christmas without Mom, it's just not the same.  We used to spend Christmas Eve to sometimes decorate the Christmas tree and make eggnog.  Mom would pull out way too many ornaments, Dad would fuss with the lights and the glass bead garlands, and I would put ornaments up until I didn't want to see another ornament.  We would smile about the ten star ornaments and glass ball ornaments with our names on them.  And when Mom made eggnog, it would inevitably come up to the very top of the bowl but not overflow, but then we had to figure out how to get the bowl into the refrigerator.  I guess I just need to hold on to those memories and do my best to pass them on to my boys and impress upon them the importance of having a big, wonderful family.  It certainly made for some interesting stories for me to tell!!

(I'm not at home right now, but I will upload lots of pictures once we get back home.)