Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas break started off a little rough this year because Patrick got the flu and was out of commission for about 5 days. But once he felt well enough to travel we headed home to Tennessee for a few days. As usual it was a very busy fun filled time while there. Our first day home was spent celebrating Christmas with my family, complete with a delicious dinner and lots of gifts. The next day was spent celebrating with Patrick's family. His mom fixed a wonderful brunch followed by lots more presents. One of our gifts was a date night that we enjoyed very much! We ate Mexican food (we don't get that here in IL) and walked around a few stores with all of the crazies doing last minute Christmas shopping ;) Sometimes just doing the little mundane things with just me and Patrick leaves me feeling energized and refreshed. Our last night in TN was spent eating dinner at Moes Southwest Grill. For a few weeks before we made our trip the girls kept saying "I wish we had a Welcome to Moes where we live." So I told them we could go when we were in TN. My mom, my sister Cyndi and her family, and Patrick's parents all met us over there and enjoyed a meal together while the kids all ran circles around the tables and laughed themselves silly :)

We drove home on Christmas Eve and were able to stop in KY and have lunch with my dad. The kids loved seeing him because he is basically a big kid himself when he is around them and just jokes around and plays with them the whole time. Overall we had a great trip and everyone stayed healthy!
We were able to wake up Christmas morning in our own home, which was great. We made sausage and pancakes with red and green M&Ms for breakfast. After that we opened gifts and spent the rest of the morning exploring everyone's new gifts. Then for lunch we made BLT sandwiches, to satisfy Patrick's love for bacon. For dinner we made some dishes to take to our neighbors, the Bruemer's, house. A big part of why we love where we live so much is because we have neighbors that are basically like our family away from home. We have gone through so much together and our children are all so close so it was great to get to have Christmas dinner with some of those people. The greatest Christmas present of all for me was that all of the kids slept through the night and I got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep! Merry Christmas!

Charlotte showing off her new diaper bag/baby carrier.

Micah the dinosaur

The only thing the girls asked for over and over again was Puppy Surprise. I was a little nervous because each dog comes with a surprise number of puppies and you don't know how many there are until you open it up. I envisioned a total meltdown if one got more than the other. Thankfully they both got 3 baby puppies! Good job Santa :)
Char (L), HK (R)

Micah loved his new stool! Now he can reach the water (not sure if this is currently a good or bad thing ;)

Getting into their stockings at Nonny & PopPop's house
L to R: Micah, HK, Char

This picture is from last year at Christmas, fun to look at these 2 pics and see how much they've grown in a year!

Christmas Eve, getting so excited before bedtime!
Char (L), HK (R)

Micah LOVES the guitar so Nonny & PopPop found him a real guitar with strings for him for Christmas. He LOVES it and won't let anyone else play it or even touch it. He is a true rockstar now! 

HK sang us Christmas songs while Dad & Micah played their guitars :)