Thursday, December 25, 2008

Another Christmas past...

It's 10 PM. The glisten of this Christmas is only a new memory, no... not really just a memory at this point, as I sit here and look around the room and debate on how I am ever going to get this cleaned up! The kids had a blast this year, as Katie put's it... "mom, it's the best Christmas EVER!!".. Well, the house certainly shows it! It was a wonderful day, full of laughter and enjoyment- and the house is certainly holding that wonderful Christmas memory!

The kids all let mom and dad sleep in, actually getting us up by coming into our room and screaming "MOM! DAD! Santa was HEREEEE!!" So with that, we all gathered in the living room. Santa must have had to cut back this year because the gifts "were not colored coordinated per child" like they were in the past years - they actually had to read the tags! Think it stopped them? NOPE! It's amazing to watch the kids open all of the gifts that the elves wrap. I bet those elves spend at least an hour and a half just wrapping everything my kids get, and I don't think it even took 15 minutes for all of the flying wrapping paper to fall all about the living room. The most exciting part of opening the gifts are the wide eyes that come out with the "oh's and AHH's.

I was a little more easy going this year, actually laughing at the things the kids were "attempting". I remember years where if they would have even thought about thinking about doing some of the things done today I would have probably pulled my hair out and would have been a wreck! Okay, I think at this point I need to explain.... :O) LOL

"Aunt Tana and Uncle Dan" were ever so kind as to give gifts to my children last night... LOL.. Gifts that if they were younger I would have died from thinking about them playing with. Can you just imagine a house, gifts coming home that are unopened.. Mom putting the gifts under the tree and finding TWO BIG BAGS of miniature MARSHMALLOWS? Curiousity get ya yet? :O) It got me until the gifts were opened right before the kids floating off to bed. Then I am thinking Okay.. It all made sense now.

Ok, the kids recieved marshmallow guns... Ha ha ha.. Actually I really wish I could come up with some funny sayings here or something.. But I made them at least wait till this morning to open them. After all of the fun from santa, curious minds wanted to shoot marshmallows.. so we opened the packages, (of course us parents had to test them out to make sure they all worked, firing mashmallows and green foam balls all around the house!)filled all of the guns with marshmallows and sent them to the back yard to shoot away. Now, the inmates were in the back yard with the dogs(Bandit, the big black Stallion, err, Retriever, and Jackie the nonstop barking ankle biter) which at the time could not figure out what in this world the kids were shooting off. While Steven and Bree kept running into the house to refill, Katie was out there picking them off the ground and refilling, making it faster to actually shoot the dogs and the kids when the kids came out of the house. After a while, the dogs started figuring out "Hey, I CAN eat this and not get in trouble"(which I may have to utilize this "tool" and bring the dogs in.. It may make cleanup in the house faster!), the snowlike appearance of the back yard began to fade into a memory. The kids laughter was mindboggling, and made you laugh right along with them.

Shortly after, I called my parents to see when they were coming out just so we could get a feel for when to bring the kids in and reload to the hilt the guns. Mom called on the way... she was in on our little "sneak attack" that was planned for their dear Grandfather... which I hope he understood was set up JUST FOR HIM... LOL. The wait for the car to pull up into the driveway seemed like forever as the kids were all anxiously lined up in front of the front door with thier eyes and ears living to hear "Okay, they are in the drive" while all of the giggles and the dancing of thier eyes shown all of the fun they were having - popping the guns off when the signal to "GO GO GO !!!" from Steven was echoed through the livingroom. Off they went!!! And in only seconds Grandpa was trying to shake a marshmallow from the inside of his shirt... (I was laughing so hard I can't remember if he was even laughing!) All the while, feeling the happiness of the kids that I actually let them go out and bombard Grandpa was actually pretty cool... They were having a ball, and I was actually letting them.

While putting the kids to bed, I scanned the house... only to see little green foam balls and little miniature marshmallows scattered here, there and everywhere, even small little piles hiden in certain areas of the house as "the secret stash of ammo". I am still laughing, shaking my head and thinking I may have to give them another bag and send them outside tomorrow just so I can find my house. Hope the weather's not toooooo bad? Hey it's Ohio, the weather will change, just give it 5 minutes!

So, If you need a good practical joke, need a good laugh, get one of these guns, fill it to get the most out of it, and have fun doing it. I am almost positive my neighbors all thought we had too much Egg Nog last night... I know the dogs thought we were nuts for turning them out in the back yard with them.

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Enjoy what we have left of '08!

3 comments:

Momof3 said...

Wow. Sounds like you had a great holiday.

L Harris said...

Tina, What a great post! I'm glad you had a great day! We did too.

Pam said...

sounds like you had a very fun, family Christmas!!