Catch-Up

I'm majorly behind on blogging. It's March 1st, but I still need to catch-up on Christmas. 

Christmas Eve we had everyone but Alicia, Peter, and baby Will came over and we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Well, except Mom. She was sick all day, poor lady. I wish I could say it was a delightful evening, but it was complete chaos at the restaurant. The kids were so excited, which was great but it made eating more difficult. Still, they are awfully cute!

After dinner we went back to our house and opened the rest of the sibling presents we hadn't opened before. And the little kids got to open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa. Right after they finished the Packer's came over with a couple of presents. One was a huge basket of fruit for Mom and Dad and the other was a beautifully wrapped gold box. Jeff handed the box to Shannon and she started opening it. Of course, we all realized what was happening before she did. So we made sure all of the kids were out of the way of the cameras. Inside the first box was another box, and so on. Finally she got down to a small velvet jewelry box. She opened it, but it too was empty. She said, "It's empty. How come?" and Max said, "I think it's magic!" Totally perfect. Jeff then got on one knee and pulled the ring out of his pocket. 

And just like that my big sister was engaged! We were all very, very excited! Mandi started crying (blame it on the postpartum hormones). She told Nate after that Jeff had gotten Shannon the best Christmas present she (Mandi) could have ever asked for. After the Packers left we had all the kids get into their new pajamas and took their picture. Basically they're the most adorable people ever.  

The next morning we woke up and ate some delicious breakfast together before we opened presents for ourselves. It was a pretty quite affair since there were no little kids there, but it was kind of nice. 

The rest of the day was spent packing and picking out possible outfits for Jeff and Shannon to wear in their engagements. Definitely a unique and wonderful Christmas!