December 24, 2008-Christmas Eve

As promised, here are the pics of Mom and her quilt!
These are the initials it took me an hour to stitch. That just goes to show you how bad this slump is.

My brother Ian has his daughter until noon tomorrow. Her mother dropped Breanna off here early this afternoon and Kasey kept her occupied. To see all the pics of the two of them playing, click here.

I think this is my favorite picture of them. Breanna is supposed to look Kasey in the eye and say "thank you" firmly to get Kasey to let go of the toy. Instead, it turned into a game of Keep-Away and Tug-o-War, which was hilarious to watch. I was waiting for Kasey to let go and Bre to fly backwards onto the couch but that didn't happen. As far as who won? I think we have to call it a draw!

After playing with Bre, Kasey was wiped out! I finally had to tell Bre that she'd had enough and needed to rest. Here is Kasey in her favorite spot on Mom's stone floor, wearing her Christmas bow. I've tried antlers on her head and bells around her neck, but Kasey was afraid of them and they upset her, so her Holiday attire is limited to a different bow for each one. I made this one Sunday night while I was wrapping presents. Isn't she cute?

For those of you waiting for a Christmas picture of Chet, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Chet hates to ride in the car and doesn't like being around children at all so he and Piper stayed home. They will get their Christmas treats when I return home next week.

Every time I looked under the tree this evening, Jake was there. This is Mom's old guy, Mr. Jake. Now that Mom knows Jake will tolerate Golden girls, Dad is letting her apply to receive a rescue from one of the Golden Retriever rescue organizations in their area. She's very excited.

When Anna came over this afternoon for a short visit, she thought Jake was Kasey's baby. She's known Jake all her life, but I guess it threw her off having two dogs of the same color in the house. Mom calls Kasey and Jake "Me" and "Mini Me" respectively. I think you can tell why.

Sarah arrived with the kids this evening and Anna was taking a "late nap." She didn't wake up until 8:30 and Sarah wanted me to try to get her to go to sleep for the night at 9:30. I knew it wasn't going to work, but I rocked her in the livingroom chair so I could say I tried. She would shut her eyes for a few minutes but would open them back up and look at the tree with it's lights twinkling. I tried everything: singing, telling her Santa couldn't come until she was alseep, explaining that naughty little girls got "rocks" in their stockings (she's only 3, so has no idea what coal is). Nothing worked and she finally wanted her NaNaNa (Grandma). Mom came upstairs and tried rocking her but she did the same thing. Dad took her into his and Mom's room to lay down on the bed but that didn't have any effect either. Finally, Sarah took her upstairs into the play room without any other distractions and rocked her to sleep--at 11:30pm!

Mom was still down in the "Christmas Room" wrapping gifts and I started helping after Anna went upstairs. We finished wrapping all the gifts around 1am. I waited upstairs while my youngest brother, Ben, and his roommate, Matt, carried everything up to me to put under the tree. Except I quickly ran out of room under the tree, so it's more correct to say "around the tree!"

Yes, that's a blow-up doll! She's my brothers' gag gift. "Tree-sa" is holding a gift for each of them in one of her bra cups. Since she seems to have sprung a leak, I'm going to tell Ian he can take her home and use her for target practice with his new rifle. I know he'll love that!

I finished getting all the gifts placed around the tree at about 2am and went to bed around 3am.

DISCLAIMER: I did NOT purchase said blow-up doll! My sister, Sarah, did!