Christmas recap

• Christmas Eve Services at Colonie were awesome. 70+ people found peace this Christmas in God’s forgiveness. Can’t imagine a better gift than that.
• It was wierd to be back in the band singing for Christmas Eve. Last Christmas Eve we were in Malta, Colonie wasn’t even a thought, I was not pregnant or planning on becoming so…fast forward one year, we’re worshipping in Colonie with 300+ people, and Brian and I have the new love of our life with us.
• Took Brian’s mom out to dinner at P.F. Changs as a huge THANK YOU for all the free grammy-sitting she did over the previous 10 days!
• She kept asking me when I was going to get sick of her and kick her out. Kick her out? She does all my dishes and folds all my laundry before I even notice them. I’m going to be hurtin when she leaves!
• Brian’s dad, brother and sister got in at like 4 or 5 am. Why am I not sure which? Because I slept through it all. Saw them around 8 in the morning!
• Threw down some hashbrown casserole (tradition on my family’s side), cinnamon rolls (tradition on brian’s family’s side) and fruit salad (not a tradition but we really needed something nutritious since neither of the previously listed items are) before present time.
• Avery was already napping before presents started.
• She slept through all of it, and still got the most presents. Her Uncle Dave can’t stop buying her stuff! He has great taste.
• Played Wii for the first time. I guess it’s pretty realistic because I am as horrible at Wii bowling as I am at real bowling. I think my favorite part was making Mii. We even made a Mii for Avery.
• Had a traditional big family feast, and followed it up with apple pie, jubilee roll, and LOTS of christmas cookies over coffee and a game of Mad Gab with the fam.
• Can you solve this Mad Gab? “Dish Hippie Slaw Stats He” It’s my favorite one. Shout out to Dorothy and Gillian, I will never forget us gettings stumped over that one and trying to solve it in a Russian accent in The Hive!
• Fueled up with coffee, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and fruit salad this morning before a FULL day of shopping.
• Before we hit the mall we celebrated Brian’s mom’s birthday over lunch! We even embarassed her old school style at the restaurant.
• The malls weren’t as insane as I expected. Not too much Mall Madness. Aww man, I used to love that game. Good times.
• Avery loved the mall(s) so much she refused to eat or sleep normally while she was there.
• I think she wanted a new outfit because although she arrived clean and had two changes of clothes, by 8:30pm she had soiled them all and we put her back in the cleanest thing we had left…jeans that previously held two soiled onesies and a shirt with lots of spit up on it. Better than the poop-stained stuff.
• She took forever to take her last bottle at the mall…Brian’s parents went shopping while “us kids” stayed with Ave. After staring at a little newsstand, Dave sprung up and asked who wanted to do a blind Coke/Pepsi taste test. So random. So awesome! Dave and I both got it right. Brian failed. Amber withdrew since she drinks regular and we were tasting the Diet variety.
• Impromptu blind Coke/Pepsi taste tests = awesome. Especially funny when you don’t have a blindfold or a straw so you are closing your eyes and trusting someone else NOT to pour soda all over you.
• Got home and Avery was fast asleep in her not-so-very-clean but not-poop-saturated clothes. Did we put her in a clean sleeper before transferring her to her crib? Absolutely not. She is sleeping soundly in her jeans and puke-stained shirt as we speak. Call us bad parents. I call us…genius.
• I am sooooooooooo tired. Good night.