christmas day

all i can say is 'wow'.  loved having christmas at our house this year.  both sets of grandparents.  all the barrett's.  crazy fun.  probably one of my all time favorite christmas'.  i have always wanted to have christmas at home (like i did growing up) and russ has always wanted to have christmas with family (like he did growing up).  so this year, both of best worlds!!!  everyone was healthy.  everyone was happy.  we were well blessed.

waiting to see if santa came!!!

yep.  lots of good girls and boys this year :)

c loves her joe joe

cousins.  can you believe mickey is only two months older???

j hugging her new pink golf clubs.  she thinks she may give up baseball and focus on golf.  smart choice at 5 years old :)

c lovin' her new train... 

the girls and their pillow pets

post sledding christmas: chillin' around the house

j and grandma practicing her needlepointing

a little toy story kerplunk

the boys and their football cards

christmas eve

we had an early church service on christmas eve and then headed over to grandma and grandpa's with great grandpa for dinner and presents.  it was a great, relaxing evening.  for the first time in several years we headed home (yea!!) to put cookies out for santa and leave reindeer food on the front yard.  loved getting to see my girls do these traditions since in the past they have fallen asleep on the way down to grandma and poppys and miss out on tracking santa, etc. 

we knew the barrett's were coming christmas eve to spend the night but not until late so we put c to bed and told the girls they could fall asleep in mom and dad's room.  even have a little show on.  j gave up pretty quickly and went to sleep - she was exhausted but e, well, the little scrapper stayed awake until everyone got to the house.  i'd say she probably crashed around 10:30.  i was ready to fall asleep around that time also :)

spent some time visiting and then got to sleep asap so that santa could come!!!!

e loves her dip...blue cheese and all.

j diggin' her new watch.  pink is so cool :)

yes, i included a pic of myself (bc i'm lovin' my new wine glasses!!)

j handing out heavy presents...the girls love their great grandpa

c just could not keep those little hands off grandpa's train set...

ready for bed but not falling to sleep for hours. and hours. and hours.

reindeer food!

picking out cookies for santa.  yummy.

Christmas Day Sledding

so i think i am going to have to break up the last week into a few posts...starting with christmas day sledding, not because it was the most important moment of the holidays but because the pics are downloaded off the camera and well, I'm tired :)

to back up a bit, we had christmas at home this year with grandma and poppy, the barrett's, grandma and grandpa and mama moe.  it was great fun and we had the perfect amount of snow to go sledding with the kids.  C lasted through presents and the the big kids hit the awesome hills in the neighborhood!!

snow angels in the making

sledding with daddy

joey successfully sledding downhill :)

now he has to walk back up the hill...

russ attempting snow boarding.  don't ask.

all the fun

jimmy attempting the snowboard.  a little more successfully

e says 'bring it'...she's ready to sled this year!!

Memphis

What a fun weekend.  But lordy is it hard to travel as a family of five.  One hotel room for all of us tight quarters.  Especially when a certain one year old has trouble sleeping in a pack n play :)

We headed down on Thursday.  Russ had meetings Friday morning, so we basically hung out and explored walking distance Memphis.  We stayed at The Peabody so the hotel itself was a big hit.  C loved the ducks and there was so much entertainment.  A local choir singing Christmas carols had J mesmerized for what seemed like forever.  We found a little playground inside Autozone Park (home of the Memphis Redbirds) and had a fun lunch where we got to make our very own s'mores (yum!!)

Friday night was a pasta dinner for the St. Jude heroes...absolutely touching to hear about the millions of dollars raised for the hospital and the personal stories of patients and their families.  Heart wrenching.  If I'm honest, it was frustrating to hear these stories of "what could be" and all you want to do is hug and love and hold your children and instead I have a one year old throwing food and pulling my hair, a three year old that is so exhausted she falls asleep fork in hand, and an almost five year old that has to be coerced into taking x number of bites of her dinner so that she can have the brownies and cookies she is driving me nuts asking for....ggggggrrrrrrrr.  Really makes you realize how we get caught up in the small, mundane moments of parenting when there is really such a bigger picture.  They are healthy.  They are happy (most of the time).  They are the biggest blessings in my life.

We enjoyed being spectators for Saturday's run.  Enjoyed beautiful weather and good friends.  Par for the course we missed seeing Russ run past us, but managed to cheer on all the other JL runners. After a little rest time we headed out to dinner as a big JL group celebrating everyone's accomplishments.  We had 7 running the full marathon and 9 running the half.  WOW.

My middle girl...she is a trooper trying to hang with the big kids but not *quite* there :) 

(On a different note, didn't realize my lack of sleep was so apparent until I saw the pics...ugh.)

My C was so happy to see her daddy post-race and have a broad shoulder to lay her sweet head on...she slept like that forever!!

And my big girl....with her new BFF Ashley :)

Headed home Sunday after a quick swim.  Stopping at Lambert's with two other families travelling with us.  Yummy.

Overall, a great getaway.  A perfect way to put the Christmas season into perspective.  We have three beautiful girls who are healthy, growing, happy.  I am blessed in every way imaginable.  But I gotta tell you, next year our plans are for Russ and me to run the half and leave the little ones at home.  I think all the moms and dads agree that it was fun to have the kids participate, but when it comes down to it you are too consumed by all the weekend 'adult events' to have littles along for the ride!!