Our Missouri Christmas

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Hey!

I meant to write a review of our MO Christmas, but we've been so busy and I've been uploading so many pictures that by the time I'm done, I don't feel like spending more time on the computer typing a bunch. But here I am...enjoy. lol

We picked up all three kids on Friday afternoon after they got off from school. I made them all a sandwich, apple slices and some chips for on the way down. We stopped a few times for the normal stuff...bathroom breaks, drinks, gas, etc. We got into Arnold around 8'ish...I called Kelly and John to let them know we were in town and we had a safe trip. When we got there, we started downstairs to hand out presents. They got all kinds of stuff from my parents...little guitar hero hand-held games, Spiderman and Sleeping Beauty hoodies, Cars stuff, Disney Princess tea party set, pajama's, new clothes, all kinds of stuff. They had 14 presents each. We took lots of pictures of all of their presents and got some pictures around the tree over the weekend. We had a late night...after we did all that we came up and ate some of my mom's vegetable soup...which Jason complimented as being, "fantastic." And I told my mom that was a sincere compliment, because he can be picky. lol He had two big bowls of it before he had to stop. After that, we put the kids to bed. One of the gifts the kids got were some sets of books...all Disney books, like Nemo, Dalmations, princesses and things like that...each pack came with three books, and three CD's so that you could just put it in a CD player and let them listen to the CD read it to them. I put one of those in for the kids while they fell asleep.

My mom had set up the spare bedroom for them...their own room for their stay. lol It was really cool. She said she wanted to paint it too, but hadn't gotten around to that part yet. There were beds, and a big desk full of stuff...crayons, puzzles, books... They all fell asleep relatively quickly. After they went to sleep, my mom wanted us to help her stuff the stockings. Well, my dad had found some old recordings of when he used to play the drums for the family reunion...so he went in my room on my desktop computer and let Jason listen to some of them. It was really cool, my dad and Jason just sat in my room for a while listening to the music, critiquing it, and talking...I sat in there for a few minutes, and decided that I'd just go help my mom stuff the stockings so we could get more done faster so we could go to bed. lol I was so tired. After all of that, we ended up staying in the kitchen with all four of us talking for a little while. Then we all went to bed, knowing that the kids would be up by 7.

Sure enough, the kids were up by 7, so I got up with them and mom and I got them some breakfast. They started playing with some of their toys for a little bit. We had to get ready and make cookies...so once everyone was awake and had eaten, we all started making cookies. We had Daniel with us too, so there were four kids, four adults...we all took a kid. I had Jasmine, Jason had Luke, dad had Daniel, and mom had Shawn. There were four bowls, and four sugar cookie mixes, so they could all make their own cookies. My dad and Jason didn't want to help make the cookies, but before long, they found themselves helping anyway. LOL All the kids bailed on us, so it was just my dad, Jason and myself making the rest of the cookies, with my mom trailing behind us cleaning up what she could while we were still making the cookies.

After that, I gave the kids a bath, and then myself a shower so we could be ready for when family came over. On Saturday, we had Travis, Eve, and Travi, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Dan, Daniel, and Aunt Kathy. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone...I think that was all that was there on Saturday. We opened some presents with everyone. Everyone that came brought presents for the kids, which was really nice and meant a lot to me. Travis and Eve got Jasmine a camera and the boys a Spongebob toothbrush set. They've been using it and they think it's cool. Aunt Joyce and Uncle Dan got the boys a Hulk and Spiderman toy. I think they were on motorcycles or something. And they got Jasmine a Barbie doll that came with a dog...that pooped. LOL It was funny. Jasmine loved it. Though, Aunt Joyce was embarrassed because she didn't know what the dog did. Mom had put some chips and snacks on the table downstairs for everyone, and she made her shrimp dip stuff...which I think is gross, but Jason was intrigued, and he loved that, too. I made some BLT dip, which seemed to go over well, I know Uncle Dan really liked it. My aunt Kathy bought us 20 scratch off tickets and put them in a card for us...so we had 10 a piece. I'll get back to that later.

About 5'ish, we gathered the kids together so we could go to Crystal City and visit Kelly, John, and all of their kids. We had a nice dinner over there and opened some presents. They got me several Debbie Macomber books that I had asked for. They also got Jason some books that he asked for as well. They also got us a Tupperware chopper thing...I know it's not the technical name, but I know what it means. lol We stayed there about 4 hours or so and then made our way home. Jason and I decided we'd scratch off our tickets when we got home. We took a guess at how much we thought we'd win... he thought we'd be lucky to win $10...but he didn't realize how many tickets were in there either. We got home, divided the tickets...and together, won $64. Then the next day when we turned them in, we used our free tickets, and won another $10. Pretty cool, huh? I called Aunt Kathy to let her know and she said it made her day...she was so excited.

When we got home, my mom had said Travis and Eve called and wanted to come over in the morning for breakfast. So around 8:30, they came over and mom and Eve made breakfast for us. It was nice to have them over again. I hurried to get the kids baths and myself a shower and by that time, my grandma and grandpa were there to visit. They were going to come on Saturday, but they had to be home because they were getting a washer or dryer delivered and they needed to be home for it. We visited with them until about 1...and opened more presents. We got all of our stuff packed up and then started to head out. We started saying our goodbyes and giving hugs, and my mom started crying, which made me start crying. lol And then we all got in the car, and all three kids are in the back going, "Bye grandma, bye grandpa, love you!" Which is so cool because we've never told them they have to call them grandma and grandpa, but they do on their own. I know it makes them feel good and it makes me feel good, too.

So that was pretty much our weekend home. We took like over 200 pictures all together! That took me a while to upload. Well, that's about it...

I love you guys...

Cole