I had a long post written and saved for today but I’m going to save it for tomorrow because OMG Christmas rocked. I’m so relieved that it’s over which is sad in a way. I’ve never been relieved. I stressed SO much about it…like to the point where I lost weight (NEVER HAPPENS) and lost hair (NEVER NEVER NEVER HAPPENS) and now that it’s over my hair is back to normal. I do hope the weight stays off. Anyway, the kids were completely spoiled and got way more than necessary per usual. It was so fun to have 2 kids this year for Christmas. Something new and something awesome. Watching Hannah help Livie open her gifts and seeing Liv get excited for new stuff and actually care about her presents more than the wrapping paper was so awesome. And me? Well I got diamond earrings and a new Coach purse among many other presents. I took a lot of photos. Here are a few. I hope you all had a VERY  happy Christmas this year!

LOL don’t you love how creative I’ve gotten with blurring out Hubs’ face? It’s like he’s a person on one of those news shows with the scrambled voices! And Hannah, she did her own lipstick and hair that night complete with a bow. I was so proud. She looked gorgeous.

Best expression ever, right?

I know the other 2 kids aren’t looking but I thought Liv was so super cute in this one!

Pure present happiness!

Took this the day after Christmas but it was such a cute outfit! How could I not shoot this one?

There’s my Christmas recap. How was yours?

From our family to yours…Have a very Merry Christmas! See you next week!

Our family does some non-traditional stuff for Christmas that other people find odd while we think it’s totally the norm…for us. I probably would have found it odd when I was younger…or even if it was another family because I acknowledge that we’re the exception. See, on Christmas Eve, even though Hubs’ parents are divorced and remarried…we ALL get together. Same with Christmas morning. Ex’s and their new spouses and all of us kids…we all spend the time together. Most families don’t do this. Most families have messy divorces and would rather eat nails than spend another holiday with that person. Our family isn’t like this. To add to that mix, this year Hubs’ brother’s ex wife is coming to both events as she will be alone since they’re newly divorced. Our kids are such close cousins though that she’s still very much involved in the family even if they ARE divorced. Then I think about if me and Hubs, GOD FORBID, ever got divorced. I’d like to be invited to things still since I’m so close to his family. I’m sure I would move on eventually and have my own traditions started without them. But the gesture would be nice.

I realize how non-traditional our whole family is. Hubs’ mom and I are super close. That is not the norm. I’m closer to Hubs’ sister than my own sisters. Also not the norm. Everyone in his family is like this though…divorced or not…we all spend Christmas together. It’s for all of us kids’ sake so we don’t have to split the holiday. It’s for the grandkids’ sake too. And really, I like it this way. I like our non-traditional Christmas.

Here’s an update to how things are going as of now:

1. We finished like 95% of our shopping this weekend. Remember that we like barely had anything before this weekend so that was monumental. Now we’ll be eating out of cans in our house for the rest of the week because I’m broke as a joke.  BUT at least it’s done and I feel very relieved.

2. I also wrapped all of these said presents this weekend.

3. Hannah lost her 6th tooth on Saturday. For some reason I can’t get “All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth” out of my head….

4. I’m pretty sure with how much my job is sucking the “Merry” right out of my “Christmas” that from now until 4:30 on Wednesday when I get off work I’ll be cussing and sitting at my desk pissed off.

HOWEVER I’m so very excited for Christmas. I’m excited for Livie to open her gifts and probably care about the wrapping paper more than her gifts. I’m excited to see Hannah’s face light up when she gets what she asked Santa for. I’m excited to spend time with our family. I love Christmas.

You can just bet that from now until after New Year all my Monday posts are going to be filled with photos because that’s what I do all weekend this time of year…take a thousand pictures. I did take about 150 pictures this weekend.

Friday night we decided to take our yearly family photos of all the little cousins down here in Texas. There are 8 kids. You can imagine the chaos. I would post those photos because they’re funny but you know, my family would probably be all “Listen bitch, I don’t want my kid’s pictures all over the internet” so I decided to just post a few. At first it started out ok.

But that went downhill fast.

So I just stuck with what I know is fool proof.

Then Saturday I decided that I wanted to get pictures of Hubs’ mom and step dad’s 3 grandkids with my girls in their Santa dresses. There were many outtakes but this was the final product.

And since Livie turned 10 months old on Saturday, I wanted to do that picture too.

Yesterday we decided to take the girls to see Santa. First of all, let’s just say that Livie NOT crying in his lap was a HUGE success. So at that point I was NOT paying attention to her not looking and took this picture myself.

But then I noticed that Santa left his Diet Dr. Pepper under his chair and gosh, that’s tacky. And yeah, Livie’s not looking. So as much as I hated the mall’s version of this photo because it’s horizontal and not vertical, I still have to use it because at least she’s looking.

So that pretty much sums up my weekend. I like to dress my daughters alike and bask in the glory of what it is to have 2 gorgeous babies who are hams and let me take their pictures all weekend.

You know, because I make them.