Christmas, Puzzles and FrenchFries

Merry Christmas!! I hope you all had a wonderful time with your friends and family. Here's what I've been up to...






On Tuesday evening I met Jeff's oldest sister and her husband. (They live in New Hampshire, and came down for Christmas.) Jeff and I went out to dinner with his parents and all of his siblings. It was a lot of fun. Jennifer and Butch are a lot of fun. I'm so grateful that I am marrying into a nice, sweet and fun family. (This is a random side note...but I had french fries at dinner, and they were cut so small!! Seriously, they were this width: __ and this width: _ I thought they were really yummy, but they were super cute too!)

On Wednesday morning I met Jeff and all his family at the Fruit Yard for breakfast. We ate breakfast and hung out for a while. Then I left and headed home to help my mom get ready for Christmas. We cleaned the house and prepared a bunch of food. Jeff came over around 3 o'clock and we hung out for a while, before we had to get ready and go to the Christmas eve service. We went to church that night, and from there we went to my grandparents house for snacks and gifts. Then we went home and all of us kids opened up our traditional Christmas eve gift from our parents...p.j's. Then, the kids went to bed and us older people (and Jeff) stayed up until 1am doing...nothing.

The next morning, surprisingly, we slept in until 8:30. Jeff came over at 9, and showed up in his p.j's also. He looked really cute. (Lol.) Then we all opened up our gifts. All of us kids and Jeff got our yearly converse. This year, all the girls got pink, and the boys blue. I can't wait to take pictures of us. Us girls got a really amazing cd/radio/i-pod dock stereo system. Seriously, it's amazing. The sound quality is AWESOME!! I'm betting my parents will regret that gift real soon, as we've had it blaring from our bedroom since we got it. Lol, we'll try not to overdo it. The boys got a really cool game table. It has foosball, hockey, pool, basketball, darts, and much more included on one table. That has been a lot of fun. Jeff and I are also super excited; my parents got us a down feather blanket for our bed. We were so excited when we opened it, because we realize daily that we're really truly getting married! It's like a dream come true. Jeff and I got all my siblings a combined gift. We got them six movies, and a movie ticket for them all. We wrapped the movies and put them in a giant box, then filled the rest of the box full of candy and put the envelope with the tickets on top. It was a fun gift to put together, and they were so excited! (I'm not sure what they were more excited about...the movies and the tickets, or the candy.) After presents we ate breakfast and spent several hours cleaning, baking, cleaning, baking and cleaning some more. Around 3:30 my aunt and her brother and sister-in-law with their children came over. Then we spent the next several hours, eating, talking, visiting and eating some more. It was a lot of fun. Later in the evening, we all opened some MORE gifts. The boys each got a really nice remote control truck. All of us girls got a pair of Uggs (even the little girls!!...So cute!)After our dinner, all the adults went into the living room and played the dvd interacting game: "Deal or No Deal." It was hilarious to listen to! They were so into it! While all the kids were in the playroom watching their new movies and playing with their new game table, Jeff and I decided to start a puzzle together. We picked a 500 piece puzzle and swore we'd finish it by the end of the night. We faithfully worked on it all evening long. Let me tell you...puzzles are only fun for so long. Lol. We finally finished the puzzle at midnight. But we were very confused...we had two extra pieces...yet we were missing one. Figure that out. Lol. I guess that's the problem with Dollar Tree puzzles.

This morning I slept in until 9:00. My parents had got up early and went out to go shopping and get the after Christmas clearance deals. They were particulararily looking for Hershey's Candy Cane kisses. My mom called me and woke me up saying: "Hey get up and run down to Wallmart! We need more Hershey kisses!" I jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes and rushed down to walmart. Much to my mom's disappointment, they only had one bag left. Not wanting to disappoint her, I went to Rite Aid to see if they had some. I scored big time there. I got five bags of the Candy Cane kisses, one bag of Mint (they taste like Andes chocolate...yum.)kisses. I also got two boxes of miniature candy canes, one box was Spree flavored. And the other, Jelly Belly. Yum. We now have candy coming out of our ears...literally. It's everywhere.

While I was at Wallmart, I got another puzzle...puzzles are addicting. Lol.

Jeff was at the house by the time I got home. We all cleaned the house and did chores...the whole time, while eating leftovers and candy.

After everything was done, the kids watched a new movie and Jeff and I started on our new puzzle. Grrr...talk about aggravating! Puzzles are so fun, yet so annoying! We were convinced we were missing pieces and was totally ready to box it up and return it, when we found a few of the "missing pieces." We finally finished the outside...but we're still "missing" one piece. I figure, let's just try to finish it, and maybe we'll find that missing piece. Otherwise, we'll just return it. It's a really pretty puzzle. It's got glitter all over it, and it glows!!

This evening, Jeff, Shelbie, Shaylah and I decided to go to the mall and go shopping. We went jean shopping for Jeff, though we didn't find anything he liked. Still it was fun. We people watched a lot. (It's amazing how many annoying people there are out there. Standing in the mall, it's so easy to see how we truly are different from the world.) After walking around for a few hours, we went to a restaurant and bought milkshakes and french fries. (So Yummy!) Then we headed home.

Now we're at home, in the playroom. Everyone is playing with the new game table, or ping pong in the kitchen while rocking out to Reliant K's Christmas music. Hopefully we'll watch a movie tonight or something.

Well...our puzzle is calling...

Until next time.