Weekly Winners 12/20 - 12/26

This week it's all about love
Love For Santa

Love For Grandpa

Love For Grandma

Love For Family

For more, visit our hostess with the mostest, Lotus

Holiday Hangover

I've spent the day preparing for family, eating with family, watching the kids open gifts and yelling at Tot because she thought that today was a pay-per-view wrestlemania event with her cousin.
My anxiety is at full force. As I look around the house, I realize that the day to day mess has accumulated as well as the added bonus of the Christmas mess. The toy room is absolutely a wreck and the space under the Christmas tree is stuffed with opened gifts that need to be put away, particularly toys and clothes for the girls. More stuff. Stuff. I continue to rid my life of stuff and it keeps returning.
It is at this point that my anxiety starts raging full force. Immediately, my mind spins to the fact that I will have to put all the Christmas decorations away. I will have to go back to work, leave my girls and start the day to day grind again. The reality that I have to return to school and start classes again begins ringing in my head and I just want to quit.
It is in these moments that I just want to curl into a little ball and give up. All the build up to this grand holiday and break from work is suddenly over and here I am, getting ready to face the reality that is my life.
This is my holiday anxiety hangover. And, it's hell.

KE Blessings

Today KE will be home with her husband, twins and two older boys to properly celebrate Christmas.
What a blessing!!!

Merry Christmas

Top three favorite gifts (according to Tot)
3. Princess bike
2. Princess pajamas
1. Princess blanket

Top three favorite gifts (according to Bean)
3. Dinner
2. Lunch
1. Breakfast

And us? We just enjoyed watching our girls, each other and our family enjoy one another.
Merry Christmas to all and to all... a good night.

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

• I waited approximately two weeks to find the perfect moment to make Christmas cookies with Tot. She lasted seven minutes. Apparently, the moment wasn't as perfect as I was led to believe.
• Speaking of cookies, I'd like to know who decides on the minutes it should take to bake cookies. Almost always, the times are wrong. And, it's not our oven. It's the recipe mongers who want you to believe you can have a bite of delicious goodness in eight minutes flat.
• Here's a fun game Tot played with me leading up to Christmas. Tot would look up into the night sky and say, "Look, there's Santa. See him, see he's coming." And when I would play along and reply, "Yep, there he is, getting ready." She would answer, "No Mommy, that's just an airplane." Smartass.
  
• It wasn't the buying and wrapping I was worried about. My goal before Santa arrived was simple. Clean every last dirty article of clothing in this house and get it put away. That's approximately ten loads of flippin' laundry. If I were a betting woman, I'd say that it's not going to happen. Washing and folding is one thing, putting away is a beast of its own.
• Adults who wear Santa hats annoy me. (Minus Santa, because it is HIS hat after all). If while Bee and I were dating he would have donned one, it would have been over. Immediately. Do not pass go, do not give me Christmas gifts, do not try to stuff my stocking.
• I am beside myself with excitement about this year's Christmas morning. I don't know who will be more excited about Tot getting her princess bike, me or her.
  
• Bean is especially interested in discarded wrapping paper. The way I see it, this will work out wonderfully for everyone.
  
• We may have accidentally gone a wee bit overboard on gifts for the girls, particularly Tot. I'm blaming Santa.
  

KE Update UPDATE

KE held both babies today and sat in a chair, they expect her to be moved out of ICU. According to her husband, it will be several weeks before she has fully recovered, but she will.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, on behalf of KE, her husband, her boys and her brand new twins!!!!!!

Update On KE

As I shared earlier this week, KE has now been in a coma for about a week. As of yesterday, the doctors were beginning to slowly wake her and she responded to questions by squeezing her husband's hand. Their younger boys are headed to their aunts, uncles and grandparents for Christmas so that KE, her husband and the twins can focus on getting KE well.