Christmas break (so far)

Friday was the first day of Christmas break for us.  It felt like the rest of the world had an earlier break, but we tried not to complain.  Ha.

Mark went to work with Adam.  His company is moving to a bigger office (hurray for prosperity!) and Adam was helping with the set up.  Adam is the kind of guy that will help with stuff like that.  He took Mark along because Mark is the kind of guy that is also good at stuff like that.

Mark got lunch and a new hat out of the deal.

I let Emma sleep until 11:45 because she had breathed threatening words to me if I woke her up before 10:00.  I don't spook too easily, but Emma can be scary.

Emma and I ran a quick errand and then went to lunch.  We came home and worked on the world's biggest crossword puzzle (maybe...at least the biggest one I've seen).

It was in a recent Sunday edition of the New York Times that Adam procured for me, because look at the size of that thing!  There are over 630 each of down and across clues.

Emma and I are like a well oiled crossword puzzle machine and we work well together except for when the clues are about sports or German words.  We just look at each other in despair.  How should we know?

Although I did impress Emma by knowing the Anaheim Ducks.

The four of us went to Nunsense in the evening.  It was a play about Catholic nuns (and one priest) recording a Christmas special on public access television.

It was as random as it sounds and I laughed a lot.

Emma's high school director directed the show and her choir teacher was in it (he was the priest).

I'll never look at Mr. Wilcock the same way, especially when he was filling in for one of the nuns, doing a cooking segment and got tipsy making the fruitcake by sampling too much rum.  It was something, I tell you.

Also, I felt really accomplished because at times they had the audience sing and I thought, "I'm being directed by Mr. Wilcock right now!"  Life goals.

We hadn't had dinner so we hit Applebee's for half price appetizers.  We ordered five and I expressed concern that it was too many but our waiter encouraged us and I forgot about the part where we had Mark.

We ate everything.

Saturday had all of the delightful Christmas Eve happenings.  I made cinnamon rolls while Adam and Emma went shopping (two last minute peas in a pod), then Adam and I did our traditional Christmas Eve shopping.  There is nothing about my early bird personality (I have all the Christmas gifts wrapped by Thanksgiving) that would suggest I enjoy shopping on Christmas Eve, but I love it!  Adam and I go to the outlet mall and it is pretty much empty and there are huge sales.

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Carol of the Bells that I love.  It made me cry and also I cried a few times because I missed my missionary and then I cried some more when Adam did his traditional Christmas scripture reading.  I'm my own worst enemy because all the crying is really bad for my eyes and I got another infection.

If someone is going to be sick on Christmas, I'm glad it's just my eye.  Could be worse.  Has been worse (I'm looking at you, the several years we had the stomach flu).

For the first time ever, I woke up my children on Christmas morning.  (That never would have happened when Braeden was home!)  I would have let everyone sleep except we had church and snow removal.

We woke up to a white Christmas and Adam and Mark finally got to try out the new snow blower.

Santa Claus found us and we had an enjoyable time opening gifts.  When your love language is gifts, Christmas morning is pretty much paradise.

We went to church and then I had a lot of excess energy to burn while we waited for Braeden to call.  (I could have used the energy to clean up, but I pointed it in a crossword puzzle direction.)

Talking to Braeden was wonderful and sad.  A lot more wonderful than sad, but dang.  I miss him so much.  I loved seeing him laugh.  I loved seeing his face and expressions and hearing his voice inflection and mannerisms.  He is different in subtle ways but still my boy.  It was easier to hang up knowing that next year he will be here.  The highlight of the phone call for me was when we had a prayer together and Adam asked Braeden to say it.  It's been a while since I heard him pray.

I love him!  (You noticed?)  It's hard to love someone so much when they are far away, but as I told him, he is exactly where I want him to be.  Last year, that conviction was a little shaky, but now I'm sure.

That's the list I typed up with questions for him (don't judge me) as well as the box of Kleenex and my glasses which I took off because of crying.  Motherhood should come with a warning label.  Not for sissies.  

Tomorrow we are off to Seattle so I'll be away from blogging for a little while.  I miss you already.  

For some parting shots, here is a snowy Christmas evening for you: