Christmas 2008

Colleen spent Christmas in Chicago this year so we celebrated with her on the Monday night before Christmas. She opened her gifts and then we watched, It's A Wonderful Life. That movie makes me cry every year and Colleen always says "you're not crying again are you Mom?" I just hate when the pharmacist is beating him. It kills me every time...

On Tuesday, we were pretty surprised that she made it out without any flight delays. People had been stranded at our airport for 2 and 3 days because the weather was so bad. Then the weather was also extremely treacherous in Chicago that day too. I think they canceled over 50% of their flights but her flight landed a few minutes early and her bag was the first one on the conveyor! She has always been lucky...We were all relieved when she made it to her Dad's.

We weren't really sure what to do Christmas Eve and Christmas Day since we are always in IL except for the year Lauren was born. Tony called to see what we were doing and so we decided to have Chinese food takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant - Chiangs Gourmet and watch A Christmas Story. It turned out to be a fun way to spend Christmas Eve.

Having Payton there was nice because as she curled up in the chair with her phone; texting Colleen all night, it was almost as if Colleen was right there with us!

Lisa and Chris also stopped by for a few minutes on their way up North to be with Chris' family. It was really great to see them especially since they almost didn't make it up our snow engulfed street in their car! Sorry guys!! They read a Christmas story to Lauren before they left.

I asked Kai to smile...this cracks me up...Then I caught a natural one...Everyone slept in on Christmas morning until 7:45.

That was really really nice.

Lauren was a huge help opening Kai's gifts.

Then Santa showed up...

Later in the day I came around the corner to find Lauren like this. She looked up at me and said, "I'm a total rock star." You certainly are sweetie...That reminds me of another funny Lauren story. Earlier in the day Kai was eating Cherrios and Lauren asked for one. He gave it to her and she said "Thank you Kai. You know, I'm not a big fan of Cherrios but I'm a big fan of you little buddy".

Christmas night we made a delicious dinner and spent the evening just the 4 of us, missing Colleen but knowing she was having a great time in IL. All and all it really was a great Christmas.