Our First Christmas

I've been out for a while, but I may post about that later. For now, let's keep it to Christmas.

We got out of school on December 18th, and it couldn't come soon enough. For the first time ever, I dd not allow about 20 students to watch and Christmas Carol, and instead, they redid the 3 worksheets that went along with the story. They were not happy with me, but they're grades are better than they were. This did not make as smooth a transition into Christmas as watching a video for 3 days would have done. I also gave my honors students a book of their poems. They LOVED them. They wrote the most beautiful poems. Perhaps I'll share some of them with you later on.

As the break started, so did the mad dash to get gifts wrapped and the house clean. I don't know how you guys with kids do it, but the house never seems to be clean for more than about an hour! I watched so much football over the break. I guess I usually watch at least 2 games on Sunday, and usually 3, but it just seems like there were more this time. I guess it's because they had Thursday night and Saturday night games too.

Monday was Christmas Eve, and that's the time that we open gifts with my family. It was a bit different though because my grandparents weren't there, nor was one of my cousins. Mitch and I exchanged only one gift each at that Christmas because we wanted to have our own Christmas on Christmas morning. We got 2 bikes from my parents, and won the contest for biggest Christmas boxes ever in our family. We also got the Newlywed Game on DVD from my aunt and uncle, so we stayed up until 2am playing it. We came to the conclusion that the purpose of the game is to cause fights, and we will probably not get too much use out of it.

On Christmas morning, we got up rather abruptly. Mitch had gotten food poisoning on Friday, and get really sick at 6:30 am. (For those of you not good at math, that's about 4 1/2 hours of sleep.) We had to get up and clean everything up, and did not sleep again. I made these cinnamon strusel muffins for breakfast, and they were delicious! Then we opened gifts. I opened a 70-300 telephoto lens for my Nikon, as well as a Dallas Cowboys watch. Mitch got many smaller gifts, and felt guilty for the number of boxes in front of me. I didn't care! A lens and a team watch!!! I couldn't have asked for a better gift. I also got 4 pairs of Cowboys socks, and 25 Cowboys pens. While we were opening gifts, we got two phone calls that kind of stalled the progression. We got back on track though, finished up, and went to hang out with my parents for part of the day.

Wednesday was a bit rough. I woke up fairly early, and went to Walmart to do some Christmas dinner shopping. (We were having Christmas with Mitch's family the next day.) I was also supposed to pick up Mya's birthday cake. They were coming over that night, and I had ordered the cake on Sunday. I told them to have it ready by 10, but I got to the counter at 9:20. They said it wasn't ready because I had scheduled it for 10, so I left. My mom and I went to Recollections because they were having a sale. (They are going out of business.) We bought way too much stuff, and we went back to Walmart after wards to pick up the cake. My mom waited in the car while I ran in to get it. Now, this is an important point to remember. When I got back to the car, my jaw dropped. I threw the cake in my mom's lap, and ran to the front of my Trailblazer. My front bumper was dented in. Not hugely dented in, but noticeably. I was a little miffed, but decided to shake it off and deal with it later. I called my insurance company on the way home, and found out that my deductible was $500, so it wasn't worth it to claim it unless there was more damage. The people of course had not left contact info, and it hadn't happened in Walmart because my mom kind of would have noticed.

I dropped my mom off and was on my way to meet my sister-in-law, Katie, and her kids a Chuck-E-Cheese, where a kid can be a kid. :) I called to see if they were still there, and she said they were leaving soon, so it would kind of be a waste to drive all the way out there. I decided to go get an estimate on the damage of my car. It took forever because the computer wasn't working, and when he was done, the amount was $522. I left and immediately started crying. I had held it together until that moment.

The rest of the day was better. Mitch's parents arrived, and Katie, Mark and the kids followed shortly after. We ate hot dogs, corn dogs, and chips for dinner, followed by cake shortly afterwards. It was so much fun. They actually just moved to Austin from New Zealand 3 weeks ago, so we're planning on seeing a lot more of them.

This is a picture of the Hayhursts on Mya's birthday. Mark and Katie are in the back, with Hannah, Mya, and Cole in front.

On Thursday, everyone arrived at about 11. Mitch had to work until 3, so we all hung out, and I played with my new lens. I think that this was the first holiday they had all spent together since before Cole was born, and definitely the first with my new nephew Luke, who was born in November.

I do have one amusing anecdote to wrap this up. After cooking my first Christmas dinner, we opened gifts. Now, Mitch's family just tears into the gifts, so you only see someone open their if you're watching closely. Well, I noticed that he had tons of packages in front of him, and I only had one. This was a little disheartening. Especially after I opened it and it was a gift card from his parents for quite a bit less than I had expected based on last year when we weren't even engaged. I felt really selfish, but I kept thinking that I was an afterthought on every body's minds, and that Laurie and Sean had even forgotten me because there was not one gift to me with their name on it. I said something to Mitch, and even got teary-eyed because I just felt like I was at the bottom of the list. Then, Laurie asked me what I thought of their gift. I looked at her funny, so she said, "The jersey. What did you think of it?" I looked at her again, and she said, "Our gift. What did you think of it?" I told her that I had not gotten anything from them, and she turned to Mitch and shrieked his name. That's when he gasped, ran to the guest room, and brought out a box. He then preceded to open it for me. I told him that I could open my own gift, and when I did, I saw it. I had gotten a Jason Witten jersey. I was so happy.

The Above Pictures:

Cole was so excited about the cement truck, but while he was watching it, he found the recycle bins in the yard.

Cole and I went in the backyard to play with Lucy and my new camera lens.

Mitch and I gave Cole these trucks, and they were a huge hit. He played with them under the kitchen table for the rest of the night.

I made a photobook on blurb of many of Katie and Mark's photos from New Zealand. There is a picture of Mya looking at it, followed by a picture of Mya, Katie, and Laurie looking at it. We later found out what a hit that was. The book was never down for more than a few seconds before someone was looking at it again. Then, back in Austin, the kids spent much of the weekend flipping through it. I'm glad that it was such a hit because editing the pictures took HOURS!!!

The last picture is Sean holding Luke.

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Ok, that's enough talk for now. I have lots of stories to tell about the past 4 months, like that little, unimportant Cowboys/Packers game that I was at, sitting in the lower level near the field, but more on that later!