our christmas...

was lovely and exhausting.  all month long, we celebrated by pulling an activity out of our advent calendar (little things, like take cookies to daddy's office, and big things, like go to sea world one last time).

to be honest, i have not at any point during this pregnancy gotten over the exhaustion of first trimester.  there are still busy mornings when steve will come home during lunch to find me half passed out on the couch (thank goodness i have him there to help feed the kids and get nap time settled).  so, there were definitely days over the course of the month when we didn't get to our advent activity but the beauty of doing something every day in december was that even though we missed a handful of days, our holidays as a whole still felt so full.

the weekend before christmas was spent in st. petersburg visiting steve's ato and aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as his mom and sister who were there for a 5k.

on the 23rd, we picked my brother up from the airport and prepared to celebrate christmas with my parents in the morning.  that night, as we finished up some last minute christmas gifts and wrapping, my mom called to let us know that my grandpa (who lives on the same property as her) had collapsed at dinner and been rushed to the hospital.  he passed away that evening, so we changed our plans a bit and took my brother to madison on christmas eve where we spent the afternoon with my parents.  that night we drove home and prepared for the morning's celebrations.

on christmas, we celebrated at home in the morning and then headed down the street to have lunch with our gospel community (and i finally got to cuddle dana's new baby boy, haddon!)

the week after christmas was spent cleaning and packing, then heading to madison for the funeral and tallahassee to have christmas with steve's family.  it was so nice to spend several days there seeing old friends and just hanging out.  the boys were really excited to go to the local history museum which features a mastadon skeleton.  

we are definitely still recovering from the craziness of christmas the week that followed, but are so grateful to have had such incredible family and friends to spend it with.