Christmas At the Mastens

Christmas is supposed to be the most awesome day of the year, it was nothing short of a nightmare at our house. Now the day after Christmas was sooo much better. Let me tell you how it all went down.

On Christmas Eve, things were going really well. I finished up all my cooking and cleaning I wanted to get done before my parent's fabulous Christmas Eve party. A couple hours before the party Zoey starts complaining she doesn't feel well. She really wasn't identifying very well what was bothering her. Eventually Brandon took her home for a while, where no real improvements were made. By the time he brought her back, she had fallen alseep in the van and took a nap in my parents room during a portion of the party. I knew that was not going to be good. She never takes naps, and when she does it usually screws up her schedule really bad. When she finally woke up it was only about an hour and a half to bed time. She was a terror when she got up, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth at every tiny little thing. If she dropped something or tripped or whatever it was nothing short of a complete meltdown. We wound up leaving the party at 7:30 since both the kids were at their end. Ian was so wound up, I knew it was going to take time to bring him down and Zoey well, It was a relief just to get her in the van and contained.

Brandon and I wound up staying up late catching up on some shows and making sure that the kids stayed asleep before Santa came. As expected, Zoey woke up wailing an hour after bed. Gave her some motrin and she went back to sleep. 3:00 am rolls around and Zoey busts into our room announcing that Santa came. We wearily tell her to get in bed with us and go back to sleep because we can't open presents until Ian wakes up. We're only able to contain her for about 30 minutes before she decides to take matters into her own hands and she gets out of our bed and goes to start unwrapping presents on her own.

So we decided to just get up, wake up Ian and have Christmas hoping the kids would take an early nap before Church. So here's some photos of the wreckage that is Christmas morning.

About 5:00 in the morning I just can't stay awake anymore and I take Ian back to bed with me. Zoey is so wired, she can't get enough of the toys, so Brandon stays up with her. Ian and I get up around 8 and find Brandon trying to get some sleep on the couch. I send him back to bed and I make some breakfast for the kids. Zoey is still going strong bouncing from toy to toy making sure that every new thing gets played with.

At 10:30 I try to put the kids down for a nap, to no avail, they both refuse to sleep, too many toys need playing with. We get to church at 12:30 and it is the hardest hour of church to get through because both of the kids are completely buck wild. We spend most of the time chasing them around the halls. Zoey shows no sign of slowing down. I'm certain at some point she is just going to crash, but she resists.

After church we go to my brother's in-laws house for some yummy Christmas lunch. As soon as we get there, Zoey sees the gifts and tries to help herself to opening some when my brother corrects her that it isn't time for gifts yet. She has the most massive awful melt down that lasts at least 30 minutes, just crying and crying and crying. We leave at about 3:30. Zoey is still not showing any signs of passing out. We get home and Ian welcomes a much needed nap. Zoey absolutely refuses, she won't even sit quietly on the couch and watch a movie. I was hoping that would put her to sleep. At this point she has been awake and going for over 12 hours.

At 5:00 I wake up Ian and we go to Moms house for some Christmas Eve leftovers. Zoey is showing more signs of wear, just being generally cranky. Ian isn't happy about being woken from his nap. I'm really just ready for the day to end, it's been exhausting fighting the kids and the kids fighting each other. Brandon and I are both really tired and cranky too.

Now the day after Christmas was great, everyone got lots of rest, we went after Christmas shopping as a family and the kids played together all day long with their toys and we relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.

At the end of the week, it was a great Christmas. I've set a new record for finished objects off my sewing machine/serger in a week. 11 pairs of pajama pants for all the nieces, nephews, and friends' kids.

One last final picture of how we decorated the house this year. We bought A LOT of lights at the after Christmas sales. It's gonna be double awesome next year!

And a list of random words that Brandon typed in while we were reading scriptures. I guess I'm not getting my bonus points for legitimately including them in the post. Merry Christmas Everyone!

poop

beeblebrox

s'up?

ninjas

tortellini

Don't josh me.

fugetaboutit

bazoop

dingy