Christmas Time

Christmas Eve, celebrated in our family as Allen`s birthday. He turned 18 and Karre said it made her feel a little bit old. I don`t know how that can be since she is 18,too. Our little man is now an adult, but when hanging out with him you would never think that he is really grown up. He got a sock monkey that dances and sings and a balloon and he is as happy as can be. He had to wrestle with Dad, Rene`, Trevor, and Paul. We took sandwiches and cookies to eat in the van while we drove around to look at Christmas lights and sang to the tunes on the radio. Allen and Paul oohed and aughed about the lights and the rest of us had a good time,.too.We encountered Santa Claus when we drove around the corner on our street. He was driving a red pick-up truck. Hanna was trying to figure out where Rudolph was. She sat in the back of the van and did not participate, but was able to hold it together until we got home so I call that success.

Today we had ham, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, green beans, cranberries, and brownies for dinner. It was Rene`s turn to choose the menu.

Jared and Kelsey will be here later. They were going to Mass with her grandma and then having dinner there. Once they get here I will have all I wanted for Christmas, just to have everyone home is enough.

This is a time of year to share with family and friends all that we have. We are blessed to have everyone stable and generally healthy. We keep everything as routine as possible, The gifts are wrapped the same way, the stockings are hung in the same order, we keep the same wake up and bed times for the littles, and we only have immediate family here to celebrate with. We do all of this to keep Hanna`s behavior under control.
She still sabotages things, but that is our normal.

We still have Santa presents to open so I had better run before they start giving me grief. Merry Christmas, everyone!!