Happy Holidays!

My, how time flies when you're having fun, or being busy, or hangin' out with Daddy, or just being lazy. We've done all these things & more, & I haven't managed to document any of it, even though it's a whole new year! So here's a little overview. Christmas Eve was spent in Safford delivering & receiving gifts. We attended Grandma Joy's traditional party & loved every second of it. That is truly Christmas to me. Santa showed up & we also had the chaotic Nativity presented by the kiddos.

Traditions- can't beat them, huh? I remember begging to be Mary when I was a wee little one, & now it's my kid's turn. Emma has it easy- she only has 1 girl cousin so far, so they get to trade back & forth between the angel & Mary. Lucky girls. Emma also had a very in-depth discussion with me about how much fun she's going to have with her new girl cousin when she gets here in January. Too sweet.

We opened our Christmas jammies & hit the road for home. Gotta be there before Santa, right? Amazingly, each of the kiddos stayed awake for the entire trip & we were able to lay out some cookies & carrots for the big guy & his reindeer just before we hit the sack.Christmas morning was interesting this year. First of all, Emma was not exactly thrilled with what Santa brought her in his big red sack. Actually, she cried when she saw it. Talk about a letdown.

Basically, this is the story. Emma decided 2 weeks before Christmas that the only thing in the world that would satisfy her would be a 3 foot, hairy, pink & purple stuffed unicorn. She asked every Santa she saw for it & painted pictures of it at school. Great. I was super prepared & got her gifts weeks ago! But being a good Santa-mommy, I searched for the desired unicorn. And searched, and searched. Because apparently it's been discontinued by Target & there's only about 2 available in Southern Arizona. If you can get to the store 2 hours away & snag one of them, it can be yours. Ugh- what do we do? I'm not driving all over the state 2 days before Christmas, I can tell you that! So we stick with our original gift & hope it all works out (& knowing it really won't).

And then it's Uncle Donny to the rescue! He wanted to get the kids gifts, but didn't know what to get them, so he gave us some $ & let us pick. MY HERO!!!! The solution to our problem? Build-a-Bear! They just happen to have a pink stuffed, sparkly, hairy unicorn. Yea! We explained to Emma that sometimes Santa knows when a family member has already gotten us the gift we REALLY want, & so the red guy brings us something else. It took some convincing, but when she opened this:

she was all better. Pink unicorn, here we come. Girls & their drama, ugh!

Luckily, Frank & Jack were amazed & infatuated with their gifts. So Santa's 2 for 3 this year. I guess that's a passing grade, right?

(I think Rusten might need one of these to use in his Santa gift!)

Christmas night was our annual Merriman family party. The pics for Tanya & Tam:

Hailey is almost taller than me now! When did she get so grown up?

Brian & his girl, Mindy

Our 3 goofballs We played cards until 11:30 at night & ate more food than you can even imagine. We even had some of Grandma Oma's "special" meatballs. Sorry you out-of-towners missed it! The nice evening was only marred by one thing: the appearance of blood & the accompanying hysterics. Big surprise. Frank seems to attract accidents lately. This one was courtesy of a race through my bedroom that came to an abrupt stop when his forehead met my dresser. We're total bums & didn't do a thing for New Year's. Andy actually did stay up until the magic hour, but only because I told him that he was a stinker for letting me ring in the new year by myself for the past 3 years. And yes, he was asleep by about 20 minutes after midnight. But at least he made the effort.

So another year is here & I'm resolving not to have any resolutions. I figure it's easier to not disappoint yourself that way!

Happy 2010, everybody!