Merry Christmas PART 1

So we had a plan for this Christmas.  Only - like all plans, there is always the chance of things changing.  It seems to be our luck, though.  This year we really thought was different...  NOT SO MUCH.  So we were faced with the fact that - the only thing we had gotten the kids were some books (super important in our house) and a few board games for the family (for family game night, we had gotten an Anniversary Monopoly and a Monsters Inc Guess Who game) ... all gotten at Goodwill.  We had managed to find Noah a Toothless figure at Goodwill, and managed to find a bag of WOW figures for cheap - also.  So we got the bag and split it up between Calahan, Kale & DB.

So when things became clear that we were not going to be able to get anything else, and how we thought things were going to go - and didn't.....  well...   I could have cried.

So...  there are wonderful things out there like Toys 4 Tots.  Which we took advantage of this year.  Unfortunately - in our area at least - we have to take the kids with us in order to get toys.  This is something that makes me crazy, but on the other hand, I get it ... they want to make sure that you aren't claiming kids that are not yours to get more toys.   So we do what we got to do.  When we got there, the line was looooooong.  And it was cold.  Having a medically fragile kid (Nathan) and a pretty new baby (Elly) we (Me, Elly, Nathan, Kaedyn, Noah, and Cal who came to help wrangle kids) stayed in the van while Kale and Dad stood in line.  Once they got close to the front, we popped out of the van and joined them.

So right between the girl in the yellow blanket and the person in the red blanket, is a gray sweatshirt (blue sleeves) . that's Kale, DB is right beside him.

Meanwhile - there was a party going on in the van!



Party Party!  LOL

I had popped out of the van for a minute to go yell at DB for cracking my phone screen (ha ha ha) ... I blame him.  He denies it, but ... I blame him.  While I was up there talking to him, the Grinch waltzed by ... had to get a picture!

After we got toys and everything, we stopped by with this (really bad) Santa.  I mean he was nice and all but - we have two Santas at our disposal and they have real beards, etc - which is amazing.  I think if they wanted to - one of the many really good looking Santa's out there would totally volunteer for this.  But we still stopped for a photo op!

Elly's first picture with Santa ....

We got a TON of stuff from Toys 4 Tots, it was CRAZY ... normally we don't get that much when we have to use them.  But ...  they just kept handing us stuff ... We got the gift bags with some gifts for each kid, on top of that they usually hand you a bag of "extra" gifts, usually one per family, then a stuffed animal for each kid, and a walmart sized shopping bag with some "stocking stuffers" for each kid ... SOOOOOO... the kids got their gift bag, then we got the family gift bag, times four... four stocking stuffers bags, a stuffed animal for each of the kids (Noah, Nathan, Kaedyn, & Elly) and Calahan saw this ginormous stuffed Killer Whale (Orca) and begged the lady for it, so she gave it to him (Calahan's favorite animal is Orcas) ....   Pictures of the gifts will follow later ...

Kale, DB & Noah all got to see the Star Wars movie that day :)  They were STOKED!

Meanwhile, I had this convo with my mom ....  told her I wanted to get gift bags and tissue paper and just wrap gifts up in the tissue paper and put it in gift bags - because my hands have been doing pretty bad (which is why I haven't been blogging a lot too - hurts to type right now) ....  and this happened...

Ha ha ha ha ....  

We also went to see the lighted boat parade....  couldn't seem to get really good pictures, but it was a lot of fun to watch ....

These are the gifts we got from Goodwill already under the tree ...

And my little honey ....