Merry Christmas!

Greg and Michael
Jamie, Naomi, Xavier
Jon and Jamie - the newlyweds
Singing on Christmas
Naomi helping to "decorate" Aunt Dawn and Uncle Craig's Christmas tree

Well - here it is the 26th of December. We spent a wonderful few days celebrating Christ's birth. On Sunday we went to Church and then celebrated Christmas at home with our family. Emily got some outfits for her American Girl dolls & Michael got many Star Wars figures. Emily also got two pair of pajamas, a Hannah Montana CD, and a nightlight. Michael also got baseball cards and a Darth Vadar video game. I gave Doug a replica of new Busch stadium as well as an Ozzie Smith figurine doing a flip and a baseball book. I got a nice robe and a GPS divice to help me not get lost so much :)

On the 24th we left for St. Louis - and arrived in Belleville, Illinois in time for Church. We went to Aunt Dawn's Church with mom, dad, grandma and grandpa. Then we traveled to Aunt Gayle & Uncle Laurence's house for the evening. After a light dinner a game of Gin Rummy took place. Mom and Laurence beat Dad and I - but it was fun anyway. Winning isn't everything right?

We slept in as much as the kids would let us on Chirstmas and played games until around 2:30 when we left for Aunt Dawn and Uncle Craig's house. It was great to spend the day with Grandma, Grandpa, mom, dad, Aunt Dawn, Uncle Craig, Justin, Leyna, Aunt Kathy, Uncle Kirk, Rachel, Xavier (who we met for the first time - he is so cute!!!), John and Jamie, Aaron and Katie, Riley, Erica, Aunt Gayle, Uncle Laurence, Jamie, Greg, & Naomi. The kids spent most of the time playing with Justin's Wii in the basement. Michael especially enjoyed it - and would love to have one. He knows what we have to say about video games though.

After a great afternoon of visiting and singing Christmas songs - we headed to the Drury Inn for the evening. We decided not to go all the way back into St. Louis - but to stay on the Illinois side so the drive home would not be as long.

Today we got up, ate breakfast - they are always so good at the Drury - and watched the kids swim. We then stopped at Target - and did not see anything we could not live without. Then we headed home.

After arriving home we unpacked and got ready to go hit a few places for couch hunting - in fact we had looked a few places that were on the way home. After looking at 5 places we found one at a place that made their own furniture in their own factories - so anything could be personalized for no extra cost. We could choose from any fabric they had for the cushions and throw pillows. We were very impressed - especially since they also had a sleeper sofa in our price range which we could personalize. :) We had about 100 fabrics to choose from for the base fabric - and then another 100 for throw pillows. Wow! We ended up with a blue for the sofa and a blue and creme pattern for the throw pillows. It should arrive in about 4 weeks since it is custom built- they will let us know when it comes in for sure.

Tomorrow I plan on purging Emily's rooom - it should be a long project but one which will make both of us feel much better. We will add a shelf from mom and dad after new year and we need to clean a space for it - instead of just adding to the clutter. Then I will hit michael's room - but that should not be as bad (at least I don't think so).

I will post pictures later - just wanted to catch up on "news" first.