OUR BABY ODEE J.: Our Christmas Story

Christmas this year was amazing, and it flew by way to quickly. I believe that we did a good job spending time with everyone we love. We were able to see everyone, at least once, but in most cases multiple times. We have been so many places this last couple of weeks. I am going to attempt and summarize, so please bare with me. Saturday, December 13th, we went to a Christmas party at The Hogan household. I briefly mentioned this party in a previous blog. The party was a lot of fun. Minus when Laura's Mother, Eileen, fell in front of the house and had to be taken to the hospital. That part was horrible, but the party as a whole was very nice. Our next Christmas party was the following Saturday (December 20) . This one was held in Darien at Deb's Uncle Stanley's house. I remember it being bitterly cold that day. It was a nice cozy party with a few family members. The meal was excellent thanks to Uncle Mark and Aunt Carol. Oden really enjoyed the stairs in the house (how unusual). Next comes Christmas Eve. Jess started the day by taking Oden out of the house for a couple of hours. They had come father and son time, while I had some time to myself. Then they returned with gifts for me! YAY! It was sooooo sweet! After lunch we headed to my Mom's house. It was very low-key, and a little bit of calm before the storm :) From my Mom's, we went straight to The Bush household in Morris. With the crazy weather the couple of days prior, all of the roads and driveways were sheets of ice. It is not so much fun carrying a 30 pound kid on ice, just FYI. When we arrived Oden was very crabby. It took him a while to warm up to everyone, and just have fun. It was a very pleasant evening. The only thing that would've made it better would've been Grandma Mary and Grandpa Frank being there. They were there in our hearts though. And we were very happy to see the McFarland's. We were able to meet Kristin's husband, Jacob. We were also able to see baby Chaela. She is just the cutest thing!! It was wonderful seeing EVERYONE :) After that party we came home to wait for Santa. Oden slept til about 7am Christmas morning, which was a treat. We opened our stockings and presents, then got ready and started making the rounds. We started and Grandpa Scott and Grammy Mary's house. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa DeeDee's, then Grandma Laura and PaPa Joe's, and finally Grandma KiKi's. It was quite a full morning! Oden was is a good mood and was being very cute. I think he knew it was a special day. And of course he got spoiled rotten. We have more toys than we know what to do with, and we still have his birthday tomorrow, and party on Saturday!! We are going to be swimming in toys. Thank you everyone for being so generous to our baby dude. We love that you love him so much. We are so lucky to have you in our lives. I'm sorry if I left out any important stories in out Christmas activities. I just really wanted to make a general log of our events. I'm also sorry that I left out so many pictures. There are too many good ones to choose. These are just a few of my favorites. Thanks again everyone, for making Oden's First Christmas so memorable. I can't wait to tell him all about it.

Getting tired on Christmas Eve