Whew.

As I am typing this up, at 2:00 in the morning and unable to go to sleep, I can't help but think how together many of my friends are who have already blogged about their holiday. Even though I did put a clause at the end of my last post, I still feel mildly guilty. Guilty enough to start up the computer and type up a message at this time of the evening/morning. Who needs sleep anyhow? We are still trying to get ourselves back on our old schedule. See how well we are doing?

That being said, we had a fantastic Christmas and New Years. For Christmas, we were able to spend a few days before and up to Christmas Eve in Beaumont catching up with family and friends. What a treat! Christmas Eve started off with the Candlelight service at Calvary Baptist in Beaumont and then the big family get together. It was a wonderful evening. Aidan made out like a bandit of course. He really enjoyed it this year - last year he screamed the whole time! We were leaving right afterwards to drive home to spend Christmas eve night and morning just the three of us, so we did not open any toys for him during the process. That did not stop him from creating a jungle gym out of all the Little People boxes! Too cute.

We drove home that night and pulled into our driveway at 11:59 pm. We were trying to make it before Christmas and barely pulled it off. Thank goodness Aidan transitioned very easily into his crib and Chris and I stayed up getting ready for the morning. Aidan woke to some breakfast, a slide (from mommy and daddy) and a stocking full of presents from Santa. We relaxed a bit watching Aidan play with his slide and drank some coffee to help fuel up for the day. Then, it was off to my parent's house where Aidan once again got completely spoiled. This boy is not loved at all!!! :-) We missed my brother, Craig, and his wife and daughter who were spending some time in LA with her family, but were able to visit with them later in the week.

We had a day of normalcy and then Craig, Kati and Kaetlyn came into town. The next day my Grandmother and Aunt, on my mother's side, flew in to spend New Year's with us. We of course continued celebrating by eating a ton. My parent's house was a zoo as at one point there were 5 dogs, 2 cats, 9 adults, 1 pre-teen and 2 toddlers running around. We were a little worried about it being too much for my grandmother, but she was a trooper and either seemed to enjoy the craziness or fooled us very well. We spent much of that time watching Aidan and Kaetlyn interact. There were some sweet moments where Aidan would give Kaetlyn a kiss or she would share some of her toys with him. Then there were a lot of times where we had to keep them in their corners as Aidan was a bit aggressive towards his cousin. Let's just say that Aidan got his first official spanking - and a couple ones to follow that. There are no scars on either child - don't worry.

For New Years Eve, we spent the night over at my parent's house with everybody. I was a little worried about how Aidan would react with all the fireworks going off - we buy a ton of fireworks and so do my parent's neighbors. However, about 10 minutes into it, poor little man fell asleep. I could hardly believe it. After a while I just put him to bed and he did not stir once.

And, here we are . . . trying to put ourselves back together from what seems like a whirlwind of events and traveling. To top it all off, I all of a sudden decide to start stripping the paper off Aidan's bathroom walls. I guess no break over here.

Due to the time and my unwillingness to upload the numerous pictures I want to post, check back for a later for some pictures from our holiday.