Possible Mental Illness and Other Holiday Happenings

Let me paint a picture for you.  It's Christmas Eve day.  I am pretty damn pregnant...massive, slow, etc.  We have decided to host a very low-key Open House at our abode because I firmly believe the evening should be spent surrounded by friends and family and no one else was taking the lead!  Even with being low-key, though, I wake up and realize I still need to make about 4 different dishes (including time-consuming cinnamon buns for the next morning), do a little cleaning, wrap Josh's presents, and hit the grocery store first for a few last minute items.

It is at this time that I remember these super-cute ornament food label holders that I had pinned a few days ago and decide that they should be a part of our low-key open house as well (this is where signs of mental illness start creeping in).   I have ornaments, but I don't have the washers, the key chain rings, or glue sticks (I ran out after my last project).  OK...I'll just modify the day...head to Target instead and get the groceries AND the ornament supplies and then head home to get cooking/cleaning/wrapping.  Well, I go to Target and for once the mothership lets me down...I can't find any of the supplies for my ornament holders.
Logical people everywhere would say "just give up...it's totally not worth it!"  But this is how I now know I must not be mentally unstable or something.  Instead, I choose to come home, make most of the stuff, wrap Josh's gifts, and when I had an extra 30 minutes or so, instead of resting and getting off my feet, I ran up to the hardware store/craft store (conveniently they are located right next to each other in a shopping center about 3 minutes from my house) to pick up the supplies, craft the holders, and have them ready when everyone arrived later that afternoon.

the washer on the bottom so they would stand up

Please tell me one of you would have done the same thing?!?
In all seriousness, though, our holiday weekend was about as festive and merry as I could have dreamed.  The Open House was exactly what I picture Christmas Eve being...time spent with a lot of our favorite people under one roof (at one point or another).  People eating, chatting, drinking...the usuals. Aside from apparently not liking his sweater, Colton managed to rake in lots of attention (as usual again) and was exhausted by the time we finally put him to bed around 9 (it was so loud I didn't think he would be able to sleep, so I kept holding off, but I guess that just proves how tired he really was!).
Once he was in bed, Josh got to work putting together his big Christmas presents (a slide and Cozy Coupe).  He enlisted my sister's boyfriend's help plus another friend, but all 3 boys still took almost 2 hours to put the two toys together.  Needless to say, there were some pretty comical/pathetic moments along the way as they struggled with these pretty basic toys (ie: for awhile, Josh insisted the box was missing the English directions...they only provided Italian according to him...in one glance, I realized the English directions were in bold above the Italian (and other languages)).
But in the end, their hard work paid off because when Colton came out Christmas morning and saw those two toys in his living room for him to play with, it was the moment I had been anticipating since I bought them a few weeks ago.  He had woken up in a really bad, fussy mood, but as soon as I saw them, he ran to them, from one to the other and back and forth, trying each one out...climb in the car, slide down the slide, climb in the car, over and over!  He didn't even have any interest in his stocking, other gifts, or even breakfast for over an hour!

that's him catching the first glance of his loot!

of course, Chipper got some presents too...he was more excited than he looks!

now, we've moved on to the excitement of the stocking...namely, Elmo!

and discovered that cars are a lot of fun to push down the slide!

With present opening over, we all sat down to a cinnamon bun breakfast together and then watched a Curious George Christmas movie that one of my friends had bought for Colton.  It was a really nice Chirstmas morning spent with my 3 favorite boys and a wonderful reminder of all the real gifts I have in my life.

For dinner, we headed over to my in-laws house where Colton was once again showered with attention and gifts.

Looking back on all the fun we've had this holiday season, I am so happy we made it a priority to fit so much stuff in.  We made some awesome memories and really enjoyed our last few weeks as a family of 3...now Levi is welcome to come and join the fun any day!