4th trimester: Christmas

It's Sunday night of Christmas weekend. Three days of snowfall, lots of eating, and opening presents have all come to an end. Here's the recap:

Christmas Eve: The party started at church, which was by all accounts a disaster - we didn't arrive early enough and ended up seated in the lobby where you couldn't hear much. Stella was a little bit crabby, as was the usher lady who scolded us a couple times for a variety of things including sitting in a fire escape lane and improper communion line protocol. After church we trudged through the snow to our car and went to Jenni and Murphy's for dinner, which was very enjoyable. The Heuermann's decided to stay at their house after all, so it was just Sara, Stella and I putting cookies out for Santa.

Christmas morning: Stella was very excited to see she that she got her cleaning caddy (picture below). This was the one thing she really wanted and now that she has it, she's looking forward to a bright future working at Motel 6.

Christmas day: Sara and I got dinner ready and the family arrived early afternoon. We did some sledding while the ham cooked. Dinner was big and delicious and the evening was spent in varying states of consciousness on various couches. Although the Heuermann's skipped the Christmas Eve sleepover, they decided to spend the night on Christmas.

The aftermath: We were back to the family unit by mid morning on Saturday, and spent yesterday and today laying low and playing with our presents. We did have a surprise visit from my Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Mark today. It was a quick stop, so quick in fact that Stella commented when they left that "they didn't stay for very long." Apparently she was serious when they were leaving and, instead of saying goodbye, she suggested they stay and play a game.