All is calm

I hope your Christmas was wrapped up in peace and joy!

I was missing our middle daughter, her husband and our grandbaby.  We got to be with them and celebrate Christmas the weekend before… 

We didn’t know it then but Hadley was starting to come down with a bug – she ended up with a fever and gushing nose.  When I look at these pictures now I can see she probably didn’t feel great but she was a trooper and we all oohed and ahhhed over her gifts for her.

So proud of this guy, who will be starting his firefighting training next month!

Proud Auntie Lulu…

and Auntie Mimi…

Papa too!

Happy Grammy!  (Look at Hadley’s face – poor little sweetie!  She was clearly not well.)

However, who can resist a good book?

Celebrating with them in Seattle was wonderful, though not the same as sharing Christmas morning and sometimes I feel like pouting about it.  But a funny thing happens when your kids get married… they suddenly have divided allegiances for the holidays and someone else gets to spend some of those days with them instead of having them where they belong – at your house.  

We had a great time with everybody who was home – I love having my girls here.  We also had Gramma and Grampa here as well as a neighbor who is a single mom whose boys were with their dad (and I’m complaining about my Christmas???).  We watched White Christmas and It’s A Wonderful Life, which I loved as background to all the cooking that went on in the kitchen. 

We had two dogs in the house who actually never saw each other, which was an incredible balancing act pulled off by Amy and Lindsey via lots of text messages (have you gone out the front door yet?), a dog crate and a house with a basement.  This was something I had been worrying about (because worrying accomplishes SO MUCH).  Sadie is a people-dog but not so much a dog-dog so these two had to be separated at all times.

If you don’t have enough people-drama in your home at the holidays, just add a couple of canines who don’t get along!!  But I love both of these sweet doggies!

I hope you’ll enjoy some good rest this week before the first of the new year…  The holidays can be exhausting!