Merry Christmas!!!

I should be taking a nap right now. Last night I went to do one of my transcripts and got a bit drowsy, so Tim got me a Starbucks to jolt me awake for the 3 hours needed to do my transcript. It was supposed to be done today, not started today. At 10pm I had a Triple Grande Vanilla Latte and 8 hours later I went to bed. Tim was going to have me sleep in today anyways, but little did he know. The "Triple" did it's job, but down at 6am and up by 9:30 makes for a very tired mama, ya think? But the post must go on!

Here goes...Christmas Eve is always spent at Grandpa's house. This year aunt Barbara, uncle Jim and Jimmy came up from Florida to visit.
***TANGENT***The night before Christmas Eve (I think) we were all at my parents house and we ended up playing a dice game called Farkle. If you find it on the shelves, you might not be too impressed, and I don't think it thrilled poor aunt Barbara who couldn't score to save her life, but it's a pretty fun game. If you can believe it, we even got grandpa to play. You tell your grandpa that you have never played a game with him and he tends to get a little soft. I'll bet none of you Rebers knew that your papa had hot hands for throwing dice. At the set out of the game, he was having unbelievable beginner's luck. He even started snapping his fingers and pointing at the dice and then calling his numbers. It was fun and funny! Thank you again, grandpa.
Back to grandpa's house. I am not sure how I missed it, but I didn't get a picture of grandpa at his post on the piano bench, but rest assured that he was there handing out presents in true grandpa fashion. "To the gift giver!!!"
Here we are in the back room waiting for Santa to come. I think there are try-outs for the role of Santa. John Paul tried it last year and I think Joel got roped into doing it this year. Eventually someone will fill the belt.
Titus isn't sure whether he is to be scared or bold enough to march right into the living room to see what all the commotion was, which he about did.

Just before we began the Christmas story, we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Levi who turned 6 this day. He air guitarred the whole song. Yep, he's 6 alright. (That's Suzanna's boyfriend, Jeff, on the left.)

These are my precious pumpkins during the Scripture reading. Are they il-mannered or what? Eden has half stripped off her clothes making her look like a raggamuffin and Titus is stealing Eden's dolly and making her fly into the presents. Would someone please take control of these kids?!! Wait! That's my job. (That's Joanna's boyfriend, Nathan, on the right.)

***

On Christmas morning we got up, got ready to go to Tim's parent's house for the day and then sat under our one-presented tree to see what we got. The boys were shocked and quite thrilled to see a Wii under the wrapping paper. I wonder where my camera was for all that? Oops.

We got to grandma and grandpa's house for a wonderful brunch cooked up by Shelley and assisted by Phil. Regardless of what Shelley might say or think, it was delicious and great of her to do it all for us. Thank you!

When present time came, the kids all planted themselves one of the couches while I managed the cameras from the other end of the living room.

Micah thinks she is so big now that she can climb into this chair all by herself. Now, can she get down? I think she is asking grandpa for help.

Nadia Renee's first Christmas. I can't speak for everyone, but I am thrilled to have her in our family and am glad that we get to see them a bit more regularly for a while before they head out to Indonesia. She is learning to sit up by herself and I got a kick out of the head-to-head she had with this dog of hers, so I started snapping pictures.

Her dress was so cute. After the second kid, I don't think I remembered to get "First Christmas" outfits. Certainly nothing cute like this doll is wearing!

That night we played games and ended up staying the night because I didn't want to load everyone up in the cold to go home, plus I was tired. The next morning we got out the door fairly quickly (the kids insisted on eating breakfast...what's up with that?!?) and found that all surfaces in NW Indiana were covered in at least 1/4" of ice, if not more. It took us almost 1 hour and 20 minutes to go what normally takes around 20 minutes to drive. It was insane how often we ourselves almost crashed into other cars. The highways were closed and we were plain nuts for being out in that weather, but we needed to get home.

***
Mema's house is where we went Friday night.

Friday night we all spent the night at mom and dad's so we could have our Christmas breakfast nice and early to get a start on opening the mound of gifts under the tree downstairs. This was the best shot of the kids we could muster. Levi and Eden had me cracking up with their sibling pose. Elijah was all about anything Chicago Bears. He was thrilled to get this football because besides it being the right colors, it was just his size so he could actually hold it and throw it right.

Levi was all about his buddy Toby, or as Titus calls him, "Toby tobe." Levi wants a dog so badly, but mommy's not ready for another kid right now, let alone one that poops and pees on the floor. Do they think functions like that take care of themselves??? I don't think so.

Eden got a Madame Alexander doll (much like the American Girl Dolls) and she named her Rebekah. You wouldn't tell it to look at her, but she is our girly girl princess. So NOT me in that respect.

Titus was just about tearing stuff up. Everything. Everywhere. Tear, tear, tear. At least this time he is tearing open his own present. His "bestest" toy was his planet hero figures. He loves them!
Micah was oblivious to what was going on, naturally. She did manage to find Eden's necklaces and bracelets and rings and put them on herself so elegantly. She was a natural. Uh-oh, 2 princesses in the house? Can we handle that?

After yesterday's freeze, you can imagine what our weather was like today. Or can you?



It was a high of 67, I think, so these crazy guys took advantage and played outside. Aren't they hot? No, literally!



The boys thought this was so fun, and yes, that's dad on a lawn chair.



Even the dogs got out on the ice for a little romp. All the girls were too chicken.
That evening the worst wind storm passed through bringing on old man winter again. There was a wind advisory and you'd have though the house was not going to make it, it was so bad. When we got home, this is what we found.



I couldn't believe it. I think we managed to salvage most of it, but that could have done some damage to people's property and boy are we lucky it didn't!!!

I don't know about you but I think that's about all the crazy weather I can handle for one holiday, but there's more to come, I'm sure! Stay tuned.