Christmas Craziness

This has been one crrraaazzzyyy week. Let's start at the beginning.

Our Christmas Eve started off with making Jello Jigglers for Santa to eat after his long journey of finding us all the way in Grundy. I don't remember who's idea it was to trade out the traditional cookies for the jello, but the kids thought it was funny...and McKay snapped some funny looking pictures of the ordeal.

"If you don't put that camera down I'm gonna...."

I'm not sure how it's possible that the only cookie cutters I own are heart shaped, but everyone needs a little love right?

I told the kids after we finished cutting out all the shapes that they could eat the scrap pile. Here's Jackson just waiting to dig in.

Above is a picture of our front room on Christmas morning, and below is a video of the kids coming out to see it all.

Jackson with his Santa gift.

Sydney with her new doll and stroller. Oh, and after much thought she's narrowed the doll's name down to one of the following: Lizzy, Katie, Daisy, or Maddy.

And I had to throw a picture of McKay in here.

Now, rewind back to Christmas Eve, just a few hours before we started our Jello Jiggler project and we get a phone call from my sister Kelly.

Kelly : "Hi Keresa, I have some news!"

Keresa : "Ok..."

Kelly : "I'm getting married!"

Keresa : "Wow, that's so cool! Congratulations! When did you get engaged?!"

Kelly : "On Sunday night....oh, and we're getting married next Thursday."

Keresa : "........................."

Keresa : "What?! As in a week from this Thursday?!"

Kelly : "Yep."

Well, it went something like that. So, after the exciting festivities of Christmas morning had past I brought up the idea of me catching a flight to Vegas for the wedding. Mckay was still on Christmas break from school, so it seemed easy enough for him to just stay home with the kids for a couple days while I made the trip on my own. We started looking at flight prices and by 3:30pm on Christmas we decided to load the car up with the 5 of us (including Sherri) and head to Vegas. We were on the road by 7:30pm and with 3 drivers we were able to drive straight through in 38 hours and only spent $154 on gas. We didn't tell anyone we were coming and had Sydney & Jackson wake up my parents in bed at 6:30am on Saturday with a "Surprise Grandma!! Merry Christmas!" It was sweet. We were able to stay in Vegas from Saturday morning until Friday night. We just rolled back into Grundy this morning at 9:30am after another 38 hours in the car. It was a crazy trip, and we are beat up, and I can't speak for everyone, but I would do it again! Ha!

The Gifford grand kids on the morning we arrived in Las Vegas. Jackson, Connner, Sydney, and Evan.

The kids at the Bellagio Garden.

The new Kelly Carpenter!

Mr. & Mrs. Josh Carpenter.

Kelly and Josh with Mom and Dad.

Sydney and Conner were the flower girl and ring bearer.

Kelly & Jackson.

So, we're back home and the break that I thought would last forever is over. McKay goes back to school tomorrow and we've got another 4 busy months ahead.

The End.