Shreveport Christmas 2012

I have said it many times but this Christmas was SO much fun with James.  Since we were going to be in NC on the actual day of Christmas we decided to have our own little family Christmas the weekend before.  After it was all said and done I did ask Ryan why exactly we decided to put ourselves through that...lol. No, it was definitely worth it to have a family Christmas but boy did it make for a few hectic crazy days!

The night before Santa was coming we went to sprinkle out the reindeer food. He was SUPER excited.  The funny thing is a few days before we had eaten a snack outside and James had dropped a cheerio on the ground. I told him not to pick it up and he replied that the reindeer could come get it.  He still talks about sprinkling the reindeer food AND that crazy cheerio that he left for them to eat.

Sprinkling the food took all of five seconds, but it was fun

 I have quickly learned that growing up with a dad as a doctor for our children is going to be somewhat of a different experience than I had growing up in a non-medical family. We seem to have some bad luck when it comes to taking call and working around the holidays so are new motto is going to be something like: "Don't make a plan because whatever you plan will definitely not happen". Or maybe "go with the flow" is a better one. Apparently my type-A, need to plan everything personality is going to be challenged through this.  Anyway, poor Ryan worked an extremely long day/night that Saturday and when he finally got home he had a nice box full of many pieces and several hours of train table construction.  Bless his heart, I just said good luck and went to bed and left him out there.

Super Dad 

 We had plans for a special Christmas breakfast but then learned there was going to be an emergency surgery for Ryan to do. So we decided that we would do Christmas lunch and thankfully James gets up so early that we squeezed in Christmas presents before Ryan headed back to work.

Maybe one year I will finally get the names put on the stocking 

James was much more excited this year than last. Last year when he saw his presents he
started crying! 

He loved his new train table from Nene and Pappy 

Ryan loved his ornament that James painted for him 

A griddle! I have wanted one for so long

Our next blog book. I'm sure that is exactly what Ryan was hoping to get for Christmas...

Checking out his stocking 

M&M's! 

 This next picture made me laugh. Out of all of his new toys and things he got he was most excited about what he could eat: M&Ms, a purple "squeezer" and magic straws (turn milk into chocolate milk). The kid is such a little hog when it comes to food.

Trying out his bike from Santa 

Nana and Pop sent him a grill so he cooked us some burgers and hot dogs! 

James and I headed off to church a couple of hours after Ryan left. While there I got a text from Ryan that said his one surgery turned into three. Christmas breakfast/lunch became Christmas dinner.  It all worked out though and we all thoroughly enjoyed our special breakfast food that night when Ryan finally got home.   Even with the work interruptions it was so nice to celebrate with just our little family and since we were leaving very early the next morning for NC it was a great incentive to get all the wrapping paper, etc. cleaned up!