christmas recap

*Please feel no obligation to read this, it is really long, and poorly written. We had a nice holiday and I just wanted to remember it.*

On Dec. 22 we drove up to Temperance for Austin's baptism. He was super good during the actual baptism part and kept his little eyes right on the priest. And he got an Elvis scarf. We hung out with Stephie and Laura and crew, and had a lot of fun. Stephie and I realized we haven't seen each other in 5 years (the horror!). Then J said it was time to head to Muskegon, so we changed into traveling clothes and left. J says that he really wanted to steal Austin because he is so cute and chubby and happy. :)

We got to Muskegon around midnight and walked directly into my Christmas nightmare. I didn't sleep at all that night, because the surroundings had me so stressed; so of course I was exhausted the next day and utterly useless. J worked his tail off finishing his parents basement, and I decided to sleep at Gramma's house. That was probably the best decision ever. J brought all of our stuff to Gramma's that night and we stayed there.

On Christmas Eve we woke up, ran a few errands and then arrived at his parent's. I wrapped a few presents for my MIL and then asked that a space be cleared in the kitchen so that I could start cooking dinner for the party. I assembled quite a few casseroles, called my mom to verify cooking instructions for the roast and threw meatballs and potatoes into crock pots. And then I was exhausted, so I sat on the couch :) After awhile the boys decided it was time to go to the club for our Christmas drinks, so I put on my cute red Christmas dress and we left. I had a kiddie cocktail with 3 maraschino cherries - I think I have an addiction to red dye #40, it seriously makes everything so much more delicious. We got back just in time to put out all of the appetizers and greet guests as they arrived. Everyone had a nice time (I think), and the food was yummy. MY BIL got a second guitar for guitar hero, so we had guitar hero battles upstairs with all of J's cousins - too much fun! I think we've decided that if we get a Wii we'll never do anything but play games, J will lose his job and it will be the end of everything that is good. So no Wii for us, but we really like playing it at other people's houses :)

On Christmas we opened presents and my MIL got me the santoku knife that I really wanted, she even went all the way to Grand Rapids to buy it at W!lliam-Sonoma. Sometimes she can be really great - I need to remember that more. Then we went to Church and had our traditional post-Mass slurpees. Yum! After that we headed to Gramma's for dinner and hanging out and then we drove back home to Ohio.

Once we got home I assembled a french toast bake from the leftover Swedish coffee bread I had made for Christmas Eve. In the morning I made us hot chocolate and we opened our gifts to each other and then ate yummy french toast goodness. This is the first time we've been at our house between visiting J's family and mine and it was so nice to relax at our house, not have to lug as many presents all over and to open our presents under the tree we decorated. J got me the fluffiest robe ever, he said he picked it out because it looked like the best one to cuddle a baby in... awww.

We stayed home until Dec. 28, I had an OB appointment on the 27th and our neighbors ended up having an impromptu Christmas party that night, so it was really fun to see all of them and hang out with everyone. On Fri. morning we packed up Zippy and headed up to Troy. Zippy likes going to my parent's because she gets so much attention there, I'm pretty sure she had a steady stream of fresh veggies, because she had this constant food coma look. She was one happy pig :)

We went to GLI on Fri night, there was a much smaller crowd of AGD's and DSP's - but we still had fun catching up with everyone that was there, and we got to see Tech win (well, we saw Tech win on the TV's in the bar, we've never actually been upstairs for the game)! On Sat. we opened more presents (best gift ever - Fraggle Rock box set), and J and I went to my Aunt and Uncle's to hang out with them and eat pizza. We were pretty lazy on Sun, I went shopping with my mom and in the evening our whole gang headed over to my Godmother's. We ate delicious pie and opened more presents, it was nice and relaxing.

On New Year's Eve my mom cooked for New Year's Day and I helped. We made coconut cupcakes (yum!) and ambrosia so we would each ingest enough coconut to have a good 2008. Then we went to dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall Greek place and saw Charlie Wilson's War (I highly recommend). We came home in time to see the ball drop and then we all went to bed, I was super tired. On Jan. 1 we ate ourselves silly, hung around for a while and then packed up the car and came home. It was a nice vacation, probably the most relaxing Christmas I've had as an adult.