First, the week leading up to Christmas was kind of fun. Nearly every morning I would wake up between 1 and 3 with contractions that would last for nearly an hour - and then stop. Or a couple of times they went longer than an hour, but were really irregular and not really strong. So, sleeping wasn't going so well as well as wondering every day if "this would be the day." To help out a little bit, and just to have some fun, we took a couple of trips to the Great Mall of the Great Plains. I am not a huge fan of this mall anymore. It used to be kind of fun when it had an Old Navy Outlet and an Eddie Bauer Outlet. Those stores are gone now. But, we did discover a few perks.
1) It's a giant circle, so is great for walking and walking and walking.
2) It isn't very popular, so it's not crowded at all.
3) There are lots of little places for kids to play, climb, or if you want to spend $0.50 they can ride a ride.
Or if you don't want to spend any money you can just let the kids climb on the rides. Ally had a great time running around.
We also took a trip to Bass Pro one day to look at all of the animals and maybe see Santa. The line was quite long to see Santa, so we settled for checking out the animals.
My sister was a sweetheart and cancelled her plans to go out of town for Christmas so that she could stay here in case Jacob was born. She was going to come stay with Ally overnight if we had to go to the hospital at night. So she came over to spend Christmas Eve with us and then celebrate Christmas Day as well.
A tradition that Ernest and I started our first Christmas together when we were in Colorado was to play games together and have finger foods. Our own little "party for two." This year we had Allyson and JoAnn joining us, and it was just as much fun. We had Christmas movies on in the background and stuffed ourselves with bagel bites, taquitos, jalapeno poppers, and pumpernickel bread with dill dip. Not a "traditional" Christmas Eve feast, but fun for us. We also open our stockings on Christmas Eve. That stems from a tradition that my family had, where we either opened 1 gift or the stockings on Christmas Eve just before bed. Ally had a great time getting into her stocking.
The "Little People" train that Ally built out of all of her new toys! You can also see the cute Eeyore pillow case that Auntie Jane made for her.
Originally it was just going to be Ernest, Ally, and myself for Christmas. Well, Jacob too, since I was actually thinking that he would have been born before then. So I had a very small ham and other assorted goodies for a dinner. We ended up having JoAnn with us, as well as my Aunt Bonnie and her husband, Gary. It was fun. My side of the family is so large that usually we have a LOT of people when we get together (15 - 25, depending on who's in town or home from school/missions etc.). So, we actually got to set the table. I was able to use actual table cloths and fabric napkins, and glass plates - including my goblets! Not fancy china or anything, but fun dishes that I splurged on when we remodeled the kitchen. It was quite fun to be able to set up the table and have room for the food, and still room for the people too. I put in a jazz Christmas CD while we had dinner as well. I felt rather grown up!
We finished the day by playing some card games and enjoying our new gifts. It was a great Christmas with family and a lot of fun, But still no Jacob...
Sounds like a wonderful, relaxing Christmas. I had almost forgotten about the Great Mall of the Great Plains. I did love how it went around and around and around. The pic of Ally with her Christmas gift and her surprised face is so cute!!! What a precious girl!
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