Twas A Very Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas! I know I keep complaining to everyone about how much I don't like being back in Michigan, but Christmas with the families was wonderful! And it was even more special because Chad and Kathryn were able to come up from Memphis and Alf and Alicia were able to come from Chicago, so the whole family was together!!!

The Christmas Eve service was fun, I was the angel, hahaha. I was a pretty awesome angel too if I do say so myself. :-) That's where we first got to see Mitchell's family, Chad & Kathryn, Alf & Alicia and Grandma & Grandpa! There were so many people to see and visit with that we didn't get a good chance to chat much, plus we wanted/needed to get Alex home and in bed, so we didn't stick around for long. We knew we'd see everyone the next morning!

We got home, put Alex to bed and went straight to work! Mitch was wrapping his gifts and I was finishing his quilt that I'd started just two days before!!!!! Yikes! I was up until 1:30 finishing it, but it looked awesome and Mitch was thrilled!!!!

Christmas morning we got up, started the coffee and cinnamon rolls, made some sausage and scrambled eggs and opened presents! I received some very awesome gifts, but my favorite is probably the "Create A Date with Mitchell LaVire". The date includes a $50 Gift Card from Somerset Mall (a super fancy nice rich mall in Troy, MI), and $75 for dinner at a fancy resteraunt of my choice! So we're going to find a grandparent to babysit for us one day and have us a date and I'm going to get to go shopping! Woo hoo! My grandparents were down for Christmas too, and they gave us a $20 Appleebee's Gift Card, which is very special to me, because they didn't really have the money to do that, but wanted to do something. So I'm looking forward to the spinach artichoke dip! My mom got me a gigantic make-up kit and I had way too much fun with it!

Alex got some fun new toys, including wooden puzzles that he loves to do (now that he's figured it out) and a bus that makes the most annoying noises!!! Thanks grandma! Mitch got some great gifts too, a lot of DVDs (I got him almost all of M. Night Shamylan's movies. I forgot one, oops!), his quilt and some thermal undies to keep him warm at work to name a few.

After we opened gifts and played for a bit we headed off to my in-laws for more presents and food and good family fun! When we got there we gave everyone hugs (it felt like there were 50 people there I swear!) and settled down for the Christmas reading and then came the presents! Everyone got some very nice things, I don't think anyone was disapointed. It's so much more fun now with Kathryn and Alicia around, it's like GIRL POWER all the time! Mitch pointed out to me later in the day how very estrogen packed most of the gifts and conversations were, hahaha. I hadn't realized it, but he was right! There was alot of clothes and make up and nail polish and jewelry. I told Mitch I thought it was funny to see how obvious it was that the females did the majority of the gift picking and the men folk just handed over the cash, lol.

After the gifting was over Al and Sue told us they wanted to talk to us, and Sue stood in front of everyone and told us that they knew we were all aware they were having problems, and they couldn't keep avoiding the truth and not communicating and they were asking to help us keep them accountable with their actions with us and each other. Then we all prayed over them, well most of us did, but Kathryn, Quincie, Grandpa and I were all crying to hard to actually pray out loud. It was so wonderful to finally have it out in the open and I love them so much (and all of thier children) and I'm so so so very sad for them. It absolutely breaks my heart to see a relationship fall apart like that. And what's worse is that there doesn't seem to be any one good reason. The only thing Mitch and I can figure is that Al has hurt Sue and Sue has hurt Al, but they won't talk about any of it, and so wounds are just festering and getting deeper. Sue has been threatening to leave instead of talking and Al just meekly goes along with whatever she says instead of talking. It makes me so mad and so incredibly sad all at the same time. I wonder if their marriage can be salvaged after all the years of hurt going unspoken. With God all things are possibly. But only if you allow Him to work. *sigh* But at least they're being a bit open and honest with their kids. I love Mitch beyond words, and Chad and Alf and their spouses too, not to mention Quincie. I feel somewhat like a mother tiger protecting her cubs whenever they're hurting, and I have an especially soft spot for Mitch and Chad. So I've been stuggling for awhile with all of this, with the mad desire to tear someone limb from limb to stop them from hurting my boys. Oh it's such a big mess. But this is a happy blog entry! So let's move on!

After we prayed other family members and a neighbor arrived and we ate some really yummy turkey. The boys played this ridiculous xBox game that Mitch bought Chad. It was hillarious.

Uncle Alf played with Alex a lot. They both, and Mitch too, love to play rough. The three of them are on the same level I think. Wrestling and playing catch (or in Alex's case playing watch the ball roll by me and then going to get it) and throwing Alex around seemed to be the favorite games. They also had fun with the wiffle bats Chad got them all (thank you so much Chad). Alex didn't really get the "bat" idea, but he enjoyed sliding it around on the carpet like a hockey stick (that's my boy!). It was absolutely adorable watching Alfred play with Alex. He is going to make such a great daddy someday!

After all of that we were all exhausted and had to get home so Alex could get to bed and Mitch and I could finally catch our breath! So we packed up said our goodbyes after a few family photos, and headed home.

It was a great Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had to rest up for our trip up north on Friday night to Grandma and Grandpa Wesenicks!!!!!!!!