This Week Will Wear. Me. Out.

It's only Wednesday and oh, the Christmas fun that we have had. But before I get to all the Christmas-goings-ons, I need to catch up a little on last weekend. Yes, I'm a little behind. I think that will be my theme for the week, in fact. Or perhaps my theme for 2009.

Sunday was a pretty eventful day here at our house. Brandon started off the day by preaching 2 church services. We've been in a preaching series called "Backstage Pass to Christmas", where every week we take an in-depth look at the "main characters" of Christmas. Joseph, Wise Men, Mary, etc. Brandon's "character"? Jesus. Yes, Brandon managed to cram Jesus into just a 40 minute sermon.

After church, we had our annual Dane and Wilson's birthday extravaganza, hosted at our house this year. Last year, our house was unavailable for parties and such, so it will be doing a lot of hosting to make up for it. As birthday parties go, it was a success. 30 kids, 1 Spiderman moonwalk, 3 band-aids, 2 cakes, and 50 Capri-suns later, the party was over.

A mere 3 and a half hours after the birthday party started, our babysitters arrived to watch Dane, Aidan, Harper, and Cousin Joel so all the grown-ups could go celebrate my father-in-law's retirement by eating our weight in filet mignon at Fogo de Chao. And because we're gluttons for punishment, we had to stop at House of Pies after all the meat eating and embarrass ourselves with the amount of pie we put away. I think the van actually cried a little as we climbed back in to go home.

Monday consisted of me spending the greater part of the day in the kitchen, whipping up some puppy chow, pretzel reindeer, cake balls, and peppermint bark for Brandon's coworkers. That night, we decided to go drive around and look at Christmas lights so that I wouldn't have to clean the kitchen. The boys got to wear their new "Christmas Eve" pajamas and drink hot chocolate out of their new travel mugs. That is, until Aidan dropped his mug and spilled his hot chocolate not 2 minutes after we had left the house.

After looking at several neighborhoods with boring white lights adorning the outside of their pretty homes, we finally found a lovely subdivision whose neighbors were obviously trying to out-Griswold each other this year with all the lights and lawn ornaments and dancing snowmen and such. I'm embarrassed to say that I also had to stop my husband from stealing the front-yard nativity set that he was convinced he needed for our church's Christmas Eve service this year. Yes, my husband almost "temporarily borrowed" a light-up Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, and apparently, our church's Christmas Eve service is one that Brandon thinks could be improved with a plastic Holy Family on the stage.

Tuesday was another eventful day filled with Christmas merriment, starting with a trip to my aunt and uncle's house to see some of my family that was in town for the holidays. Harper got to meet some new cousins, and she wore the dress that her G.G. bought for her when she was still in utero at my baby shower.

Dane and Aidan spent the visit upstairs thinking of various things to throw over the railing into the downstairs living room (Aidan actually squirt half a bottle of Germ X downstairs. Thanks Aidan), and Harper was a bit overwhelmed at first with all the family fun. Overwhelmed to the point of screaming and crying at my cousin Cliff when he so much as looked at her. After an hour or so she had warmed up to everyone a bit more, and she even let Cliff hold her before we had to leave to continue our search for a front yard nativity for Christmas Eve service (yes, I'm serious).

After unsuccessfully checking at Garden Ridge for the elusive front yard Holy Family (though they did have 3 Wise Men made of tinsel), we headed over to Val's house for some fajita-eating and cookie-decorating. The boys made cookie art,

Brandon made a skull,

and Brandon, Adrienne, and Val had a Santa-cookie contest. 10 points to Val for busting out the marshmallows.

Tonight holds the first of four plastic nativity-free Christmas Eve services for Brandon, and some family time, lasagna, and Christmas movie watching for the rest of us.

And maybe we'll eat a cookie or two.