Merry Christmas!

We've had a very nice few days here. Dh lit a fire under the teens on Christmas Eve to get them to help me. They discovered what I already knew---that Mom is much happier when everyone pitches in to help, rather than expecting Mom to provide the perfect Christmas unassisted.

Christmas Eve was great because we all worked together and had fun doing it. Everyone got to prepare part of the feast for that evening and Christmas Day. We had our usual celebration: watching movies, eating party food, looking at Christmas lights, and more movie watching (and maybe a little napping) before midnight Mass.

Mass at midnight was beautiful as always, especially the music beforehand! Afterwards, all the sleepyheads woke up and we opened presents at 2 a.m.! Bedtime was around 3:30 and everyone got to sleep as late as they wanted. I think I slept until 10:00 a.m. Then Madden made brunch with Uncle Pat & Aunt Michele's gift of Trader Joe's pancakes and syrups. Thanks, guys! It was great!

We had a great time all day playing with new toys, several of which were very active. HyperDash was a lot of fun with the whole family. I wish I had pictures of that one!

TMax wanted a "slosh tube" that we had seen on Mark's Daily Apple. So, MoW had gone to Home Depot for the parts. It's supposed to be 10' long, but we thought that would be too much for a child, so he had the 10' PVC pipe cut into 4 and 6 foot lengths. One for TMax and one for me. We'll upgrade eventually to the 10-footer.

The tube is half-full of water which makes it a little heavy, not too bad, but the challenge lies in the fact that the water sloshes around and you are constantly working to keep it balanced. Just carrying it across the cul-de-sac or holding it over your head is hard work! Here are a couple of videos showing how unwieldy it is.

This was taken the day after Christmas and TMax has already gotten much better at handling it. I wish we had a video from the first time he picked it up.




Here's another one of me with the 6-footer. Frankly, we think the 4" pipe is too big. It's hard on the wrists and too hard to grasp because you can't get your hands around it. I think we'll go for 3" when we get a 10-footer!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm going back to my vacation now. I've informed everyone, repeatedly, that Mom is on vacation. I'm cleaning up after myself, but that's about it. It's hard though! I can't stand the clutter that builds up and I'm not mean enough to stop doing their laundry. But that's what I need to do---stop all cooking and cleaning and washing so they can appreciate me. Actually, I'm not sure I need to be appreciated, just helped.

I'm enjoying knitting fish hats for birthday presents, reading (just picked up Summer at Tiffany), playing with their toys (Wii Outdoor Sports and Hyperdash), and watching TV!