Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014 started out beautifully. Christmas Eve morning we loaded up to head to Radford for the day for family celebrations. We met up with my brother and his family at my parents house for our annual dinner, presents and fun.

This was the best attempt I could get at a picture of all five of my parent's grandchildren. David was so excited and silly that it was hard to get him to take a picture seriously:)

After some of GG's good cooking, we opened gifts. This little girl was so excited about everything about Christmas except for Santa:)

David loved being the center of attention of course, and thoroughly took his time on ever.single.present. It was hilarious and painful to watch! He would also grab his heart when he opened every present just to add to the drama of the moment. This present he was especially excited for because....

it was a new Lebron Cavs jersey!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After presents we played dirty bingo and had a relaxing afternoon chatting and catching up. We all then went to the nursing home to visit with Memaw. She was doing great.

After the nursing home visit we headed to an extended family gathering at my great uncle's house with my mom's side of the family. The family has gathered since 1964 together on Christmas eve. WE have missed the last few years, but this year we made it. Here is Hope with my 95 year old, Aunt Louise! Isn't she precious?!

After another big meal (calories don't count on holidays) we had a family worship service. Here is Hope handing out the song sheets to sing.

Here is Kyle doing a reading. Someone always reads the Christmas story from the bible. We got home late on Christmas eve tired but happy from a fun day of celebrating Jesus' birth.

Christmas morning started out great. Hope came downstairs to excited to find her Doc McStuffins medical cart!

David was thrilled with his new Kevin Durant jersey and Kevin Durant shoes. Dave loves him some NBA action.

I cannot believe we managed to keep this secret for almost six weeks, but the kids big present is a trip to Atlanta next week to see the Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers play!!! We have seen Lebron as a Heat player and now we will get to see him as a Cav!! We are going with some dear friends and we will stay in Atlanta for New Years. We are so excited and we not only managed to keep the secret, but we shocked the kids! Atlanta will never be the same after the Pugh's and Robinson's leave!

AS the kids were opening their presents, I noticed that I started chilling and feeling terrible. After I took this last picture of the kids with their stockings, I told Mike I felt terrible and needed to go back to bed. Within an hour I had spiked a fever and I stay quarantined in my rook the rest of Christmas day:( I slept most of the day and today I am much better. We are just praying that the kids don't get this nasty bug with our upcoming trip.

So Christmas was wonderful, but not exactly like the script that was written in my head. Because of my bug, no visits from GG,Pops, and Mimi like we typically do which the kids really missed. I didn't get to see the kids enjoy their presents because I was so sick. But, thinking back to the first Christmas when Jesus was born, it did not exactly go perfectly either. I am sure Mary never imaged herself giving birth in a barn far away from home. Merry Christmas from our home to yours!