Thursday night, we ate at Joe T. Garcia's (yummmm) with the Redman family plus Mark, Katrina, Berry & Helen, and Courtney (Jimmy's girlfriend). We then returned to the Redman house for gifts and good times, which included Pilates workouts coached by Katrina, goofy antics involving a Hawaiian shirt with Mark, and just the Redmans being the Redmans. (You know exactly what I mean.) The highlight of Noah's night was getting an amazing choo-choo train from Mark:
Christmas Eve was spent with my parents and sister Diana. Mom made a delicious homemade lasagna from scratch, and my contribution was cinnamon apple jello salad (don't knock it 'til you try it). Mom also made my favorite for dessert: chocolate meringue pie! We opened our gifts one at a time--the best way to do it, because it takes over an hour and you can see everyone's gifts as they open them. Chris really made out well with a cargo area liner for his Subaru, some very nice clothes, and lots of other gifts. Noah hit the jackpot with a Rescue Station (basically a dollhouse for boys), complete with all kinds of accessories and a policeman, fireman, firetruck, police motorcycle, and two dogs. Here's the video:
And, to top it all off, I received a Nook! It's an e-reader that downloads books from Barnes & Noble, plus google and loaned books from the library. I can carry an entire library of books in something lighter than a paperback. AMAZING! I already downloaded the entire Bible for $1.49, plus I got the complete works of Jane Austen for $0.99. It is sooo much fun.
We got home from Mom & Dad's just in time for Santa to visit. Christmas morning we woke up to lots of toys from Santa:
We also had a few gifts for Noah in addition to Santa's gifts, such as a little bulldozer, a doctor kit, and a Thomas the Tank video. Noah gave Chris a money counter/storage container, and Chris broke the rules by giving me a white Relic watch. Santa also filled all our stockings with nice things!
After a slow start, we headed to Mamie and Papa's house for Christmas brunch (delicious!) and gifts, individually-opened style. Steph was unimpressed with the waiting technique, and votes to go back to tearing into all the gifts at one time next year. Chris and I are so amazed by all the generous gifts our family received, and are excited to use Home Depot gift cards from Mark and Drew & Jamie to purchase or build a storage shed for the backyard. It's starting to look like it may be filled with toys! Noah was blessed with toys from Mamie and Papa, including airplanes, a small 18-wheeler, a Cars coloring book, and so much more. My favorite gift of Noah's is the cube shelf unit for his new room! You can see some of the haul in this picture:
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| Noah's future room (the front bedroom) |
We headed home in the afternoon for some much-needed rest. We were invited to Sharon's house for dinner and fun with the family, but Noah needed some down time and Chris was anxious to watch the entire Cowboy game, which ended up being a waste of time. My parents and Diana dropped by and we searched for places to get some food, but no one was open! Sorry, Lindsay, apparently Starbucks is the only slavedriver who makes people work on Christmas. We settled for frozen pizzas from RaceTrac, which was ironic since we had been arguing over whether Papa John's, Domino's, or Little Caesar's was the best. When I quickly became disenchanted with the Cowboys, Mom and I tried out the new Scrabble Flash game we got from Jamie & Drew. We had a wonderful Christmas week (or two) with family and friends!
Click on the photo below to see an album of the weekend.
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| Christmas Weekend |
Merry Christmas!
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| Noah in his new outfit from Courtney |
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