Holiday Rewind--Christmas 2011

Barrett woke up in his new house on Christmas morning!!

I LOVED that he got to come down the stairs in his Christmas jammies! It was so cute!

Our new carpet had just been installed two days before. 

It was nice to finally have clean, cozy carpet to make it OUR space.

That Friday (Dec. 23rd) after the carpet was done, I hurried to get the tree moved back into the family room, the furniture arranged, and mantle decorated. I wanted it to be home for Christmas!

{burlap wreath my creative sis-in-law made for me}

Gigi and Papa got to come over! Barrett is not your typical 'get up at the crack of dawn' child.

He slept-in until about 8:30am, I think. That is actually early for him.

Then we called Gigi and Papa to come over, and kept Barrett entertained upstairs until they got here.

I think it's safe to say he was excited about everything!!!

After the gift excitement, Barrett and I both took a late-morning nap on the couch.

Then we went outside to try out the new bike!!

We had a late lunch at Gigi and Papa's, and celebrated Gigi's birthday!!

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The weekend before Christmas, Barrett has his Christmas program for school.

They did it during the regular Sunday church service, and that place was packed!!!

I was sad I couldn't see Barrett at all from our pew, once his class got up there to sing.

He was front and center, and I think a little in shock at all the people.

He was mostly frozen for the whole two songs. Luckily Norah Kate's dad went up front and got it on video, so we got to watch that. This is the only pic I could get...AND I snapped it too soon. Just a blur of Barrett's head. Oh well :(

After the service, we went home and CLEANED like crazy. The house was mostly empty, and the new owner was supposed to come after 1pm to start moving things in. We had worked hard to clear out several rooms for her to have. Long story, short...she didn't end up moving anything in that day. We had rushed to do all that work (me vacuuming like crazy in my sweater, skinny jeans and boots) for nothing. That was the day I had a breakdown. It had all been moving so fast, I hadn't really had time to think about leaving our house. There was so much going on, our house was bare, and I knew it was the last night we'd ever spend there. {additional post on that later}

That afternoon (Dec. 18th) we went to my parents for early Bush-Tuttle-White Christmas.

Aunt Clara and Uncle Doug had made a "Bush Family" Jeopardy game!

Categories consisted of: Grandkids, Mom & Dad, Colleges, Sports, etc.

It was very fun!!

There was even a question about me under grandkids...

"Professional photographer in the family"

Who is---> LAURA

Justin had one too ;)

"Cable guy"

Who is---> JUSTIN

We were divided into three teams.

Mamo's team won!!!

It was fun for me to learn all the towns Mamo and Bapo had ever lived in, What job Bapo worked to get himself through college, and Bapo's favorite song.