Katie and Joe woke up at about 6:30, I think, and excitedly began waking everybody else in the house. This is the first year I recall the kids actually waking up first, so it was kind of exciting! This is the way it's supposed to be--not us dragging the kids out of bed at 7:00 or 8:00 and trying to get them awake enough to open presents like in years past! Ha! Kate and Joe were plenty awake and excited this year and it didn't take too long for Sam to join them.

We went into the living room and the kids were in awe of that ridiculous mountain of presents I mentioned last time. In our family, we always sort the presents and pass them all out, then open them. Around here the kids are supposed to just tear into 'em! So I left the camera work to James this year (I haven't looked to see what he got pictures of yet) and I kept my notebook handy. Still, it wasn't easy keeping up with three kids tearing into to things and writing down who got what and from whom! (It's difficult to send thank you cards if you don't know who to thank for what, you know!) Anyway, the kids had a truly grand time, of course, and got way more stuff than any kid should be allowed. Actually, it wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for cousin Frankie. Those 10 or 15 gifts pushed it over the top, I would say! Ha! (She is SUCH a nice person and I know she means well... but I really wish something could be done about this!) James' mother gets LOTS of stuff for the kids, but at least a whole lot of it is practical. They all get new winter coats and pajamas and shoes and stuff like that, then toys, too. I always get the same excess/materialistic feeling with all of the "extra" presents, though. It's just not a good thing, you know?! There are so many of them that the kids run from one to another and then another, all in 3o seconds. There's no time for them to even appreciate any of it because there's just TOO MUCH. I can see why kids in "the good old days" felt soooooo blessed and soooooo lucky when they got their one or two Christmas presents--what a special thing to get a gift! But when you get 20, what's so special about it?! Anyway, this may sound terrible, but James and I actually picked out several things and set them aside to give away to charity before they're ever even out of the package. It's just not good for kids to have so many toys! They've still got way more than they could ever need, I assure you. And it's not that we're ungrateful for the gifts... we just want to do what's best for the kid-o's. And 28 new toys in one day ain't it. ;-)

Another weird thing they do around here is keep all of the presents under the tree. After they're opened, I mean. Now that I think of it, it's rather ironic. They don't put any of the presents under the tree before Christmas, but after you open them, then you have to shove them all under the tree and leave them there--for days! They say it's because in the days following Christmas all of the family around here (and there are TONS) will sort of mill around and visit from house to house and you can show them what everybody got for Christmas 'cause it's still right there under the tree. Drives me nuts. Not that I don't get the concept--that's what they do around here and I'm glad they have traditions of some kind!--but the mess just makes me batty. It seems especially bad this year, maybe because I've been in nothing but mess for the past few weeks with the move! Who knows. Anyway, we piled everything back under the tree (which wouldn't be so bad, but "under the tree" doesn't take long to be "strewn all across the living room and throughout the rest of the house!" and THAT'S what gets to me!) and I started the hot rolls at about 8:00, I think. James went back to bed (of all the nerve!) and left me to spend the next hour or two helping kids get stuff out of dumb plastic packaging requiring a chainsaw to penetrate (don't you HATE those?!) and dippy wires strapping every little thing to a second layer of cardboard hidden on the inside of the box and digging out screwdrivers and installing batteries and all of that fun stuff. We worked on the house and dinner and ate at about 12:30, I think. It was good, even without gravy. (Another weird thing up here! Ha!) We had a really, really good ham, potatoes, noodles (which they put on top of the potatoes in lieu of the missing gravy--I told you, they're weird!!!), corn, stuffing, leftover chicken, and my hot rolls. And I made cinnamon rolls, too. James' mother had made apple pies (she makes the very best) and pinwheel cookies and chocolate chip drop cookies and something else, so there was already plenty of desert... but it always helps it feel more like Christmas if you have some of the things you're used to having! Thus the hot rolls and cinnamon rolls. And punch.

The kids played long and hard all day long and James' folks spent quite a while "up the hill" with them. They kids each constructed their own "house," so I hear, out of miscellaneous stuff from the barn. They were gone long enough for me to get a good nap, which I was thankful for! And by the excited chatter when they got back I know they all had a great time. :-)

The boys both crashed out on the couches by about 6:00 that night. Katie managed to stay awake long enough to help me make Christmas cookies. (Another one of those things we didn't NEED, except to make Christmas feel "right"!) They turned out great! Yum. I've eaten way, way, way too many of them in the past 24 hours!

Sam woke up just a few minutes before bedtime (creep!), but Joe just slept right on. I got him into his pj's and carried him in to bed. Sam apparently couldn't get sleepy enough to go down easily, so he stayed up being bad. I know that because in the middle of the night sometime he woke up and decided to haul his blanket and pillow into our room to sleep on the floor, as he sometime does. But it wasn't the pitter-patter of little feet we heard coming to our room, it was the CLOMP-CLOMP-CLOMP of cowboy boots! I knew the sound instantly and told him to take those crazy boots off. It wasn't until this morning that I realized he was dressed in full cowboy garb--jeans, cowboy shirt and the new vest he got from Auntie Em for Christmas. That turkey! He had apparently got all his duds on after being sent to bed last night.

Due to his adventuresome night, Sam slept in until about 9:00 today! Wow! Katie and Joe were up bright and early though. It was a pretty quiet day around here today. Except for about an hour of it when that dumb dog ran away. Ggrrrr!!! Sometimes I could just KILL him! Long story short: Hershey ran away while no adults were around to stop him (he actually stops and comes back to us nowadays) and we looked all over tarnation for him for about an hour. Uncle Don came stolling in with him after about an hour. What a pain!!! But at least Hershey acts remorseful now. He used to come home from running away all giddy and proud of himself. Now he slinks around all hunkered over and won't look straight at you, just sort of glances up out of the corner of his eyes. And if you start telling him what a bad dog he is he drops flat on his back and puts all four paws in the air and looks away in that "please don't beat me" thing of his. Pitiful. Anyway, God brought that dumb dog back home AGAIN. And I'm thankful.

That was about it today. Nothing else exciting. Tim Reitler, a CoGoP guy from up here that James used to be pretty close to, came to visit today. I know James really enjoyed that. And that's it! I'm really wishing I would have brought a cross-stitch with me. It would be nice to have some handwork to do. Katie got a potholder kit for Christmas (two of them, actually) and she whipped out her first two potholders yesterday and another one today. She sold the "hunter one" (orange and green--because every hunter wants a potholder! Ha!) to Grandpa Norman for $2. Ha! What a racket! I made two potholders of my own today, too, although I don't intend to sell them for $2 a whack. ;-) It's actually kind of fun. We told Katie she can make a whole bunch of them and donate them to the Mission table or something. She was really excited about that. :-)

Okay, that's it from around here. I wanted to post before I got too far behind and couldn't remember anything. I know how this goes! More in a day or two, I'm sure.