Holiday Highs and Lows

The High:
We had a great time over the holidays. We had family up, we had lovely gifts, and lots of wonderful food. Ahhh the food. It was delicious. But we had such a nice time. Nathan didn't really understand the whole thing, but he DID understand presents. And holy crap did Nathan make out. Now, we only got Nathan a few presents because - hey, he doesn't understand Christmas so why go crazy? AND because we knew he'd make out like a bandit from the relatives. My mother brought a ton of beautiful books for Nathan and he got a few other fabulous gifts from his cousins and Aunt and Uncle. It was Nathan's Nana, however, that REALLY spoiled him. He had four big, and I mean BIG bags, of toys. He got clothes and a push toy lawnmower, a rider, a stand up table and a bunch fo other things. My goodness. I have so many toys that the other day I filled two rubbermaid storage containers and one huge bag with baby toys and brought them to the attic. Even still there is barely room in his playroom because there are SO MANY TOYS. I will say this, I NEVER got that many toys in my life. I feel cheated people, CHEATED!!!

The Low:
Right now though, it's been clean-up time. Two bags of trash went out, I cleaned out the fridge and put in a load of laundry for Nathan and ran the dishes. I am EXHAUSTED. You would think that would be enough. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. My dog, the erstwhile Monty has been really nervous lately with relatives visiting and the such. Well the night before we had locked Monty in our room for the night - we didn't want him bothering Jeff's Mom and her boyfriend Joel in the middle of the night. Well Monty whined NON-STOP. Around 2am Jeff lost his mind and locked Nathan in the bedroom across the hall. Shame on us people, shame on us. Monty was whining FOR A REASON. He had to go out. And he had to go out NOW. We were greeted by dog poop... all over the floor. All over our beige CARPETED floor. Color me pleased. But I also felt bad. The poor dog had TRIED TELLING US he needed to go out, and we were so tired we didn't get the memo. But still... I spent HOURS in there cleaning up and there is STILL a brown stain on the rug. Do I need to add that at the same time we had been hit by a big time blizzard so Jeff and my father were outside shoveling. I don't know who had it worse, me or Jeff and my father. Personally I think it was me and my nightmare of rug cleaner, sponges and vacuum cleaner. Never mind that it is STILL not clean. So the room is shut off. What I really want to do is rip up the carpet because I am so grossed out by the idea of dog poop on the carpet, but let's face it - we're broke. It's not happening.

So that was our holiday! Some ups and downs, mostly ups, and we were all happy and warm and well-fed. Win win all around!

Oh, and I'm leaving you all with my first attempt at a gingerbread house. Be kind: