Christmas continued...

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to post tonight, but I just came back downstairs after cuddling with the little guy and he seems to be back asleep...for now. Thankfully he was back to his usual sleeping habits last night, and slept until 9:30 this morning, but he just needed a little extra love again tonight...and while I held him he laid his head on my shoulder and played with my hair and face as he fell asleep...AH, I absolutely adore him. Unfortunately we're germ-swapping around here and I think I'm now getting his sickness, too. I had a fever during the night last night and I'm all stopped up - yuck! But either way, I just want the little guy to get better soon! He's still playing around as usual though!

Okay, now where were we...

Oh yeah, the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

{or by the bar, in our case...since we set our tree up in our living room instead of our den! either way...}

And then the next morning (when the little guy finally woke up at 10:30), we headed downstairs to see if  Santa had visited our house!!!

He did, he did!!!

{Nicholas videoed Mills opening the gifts, so this the only actual picture I have}

And then I put my breakfast casserole in the oven, and was ready just in time for Gammy, Philly, and MaMa to make it in town from the upstate! We were glad they made it before all of the snow started up that way!!!

And when they unloaded all of their presents, it looked like Santa had come again!!!

We got LOTS of goodies, here's a little sampling...

Cute necklaces {and some frames, too, which Nicholas was clearly excited about} ;)

A sweet Willow Tree figurine from my Mama!

Some really nice Wallace wine...how cool is that!

My big surprise! Can you see the excitement?!?! )

Nicholas got lots of gift cards and moo-lah, which is what he had asked for! :) And he went straight to Best Buy on Sunday to get a new Playstation (after his went out about a month or so ago)...such a big kiddo. :)

I got some new Frye boots,

and some goodies from my good friend, Tory. :)

I would have loved to run around in the snow in my new TB rain boots...except that we didn't get any, bummer!

MaMa opening some gifts!

And mom got her request granted - blog books! I got them from blog2print and they really turned out wonderfully! The problem is they rack up in pages and $ really quickly, so each of those books are over 100 pages and they only go through month 5 of Mills' life, ha! Eventually I'll get ya the whole set, mom! :)

me and my love dove!

And with MaMa

and with my Mama!

{can you tell Mills was down for a nap...hence all the photos of us, haha!}

Oh, and Nicholas got me a cool thing that goes in the car to make my phone hands-free and play internet radio and satellite radio over the car speakers - so I can listen to my cosmo radio morning show again, woohoo tay-tay! :)

Nicholas got apple tv, a miami bottle opener/keychain, and a few shirts, too!

And then the little guy awoke from his nap!

{and yes, we wore our PJ's all day long in case you were wondering!}

"This is all for meeeeeeeee???"

Getting into the sack of goodies from Gammy and Philly!

This was a process, you see, because he started wanting to play with the things he was opening instead of unwrapping more! I ended up opening the last of his gifts! 

A cool new riding/push toy from my great-grandma!

Now show me how this works, dad...

Check me out!

{btw, the stuff under his lip is left-over baby food from one of the pouches he was sucking on...you know, there's no time for crazy things like cleaning your face when there are all of these fun toys to play with!}

beep beep, coming through!

Thanks, MaMa!

And then it was time to get to cooking for our big dinner!

This is typically why it's a little harder than it used to be to get things done around the kitchen... :)

We had loaded mashed potatoes (PW recipe), fresh green beans, corn casserole (PW), ham, rolls, and an apple skillet cake (which I served with Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream) - YUM!!!

And I made it in my grandmother's (dad's mom) cast iron skillet that I got whenever she passed away - I just got it from my mom's house last time I was home, so it was special. She used to make the most unbelievable cornbread and pineapple upside down cake in this thing! It's been handled by some sweet hands. :)

And after dinner...we played SOME MORE!!!

{Mills loves this gift, Myra and Peyton!}

And Santa was good to the doggies, too...

Mills also wants to give a shoutout to his Gammy, who turned 54 TODAY!! :) Can you believe it? We sure don't think she looks a day over 40! :) Love you, mom!

This was by far, the best Christmas yet! What joy this sweet little face brings! :)

More ahead...

So I had planned on posting all of our Christmas pictures tonight, but I have a sick little ducking in the house, so this will be a short and sweet post of Christmas Eve instead!

My sweet little guy - dressed up for church but then we weren't able to go because we thought Nicholas was going to be called in to work early the next morning (so Santa was going to make an early stop by our house), as you probably read in my post on Christmas Eve, but then praise the Lord the other resident stepped up and worked after all! 

Although it's the first time in a LONG time we've missed the Christmas Eve service, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the little guy started getting sicker and running a fever. :(

poor little thing.

but i did enjoy his sweet cuddles while we watched ELF!

And he stayed up a little later than usual, and we left out our cookies for Santa, of course.

silly goose, those are for santa!!!

His fever went away but he's still really congested and has a cough. I called the pediatrician's office yesterday and they said it sounds like a viral thing, no need for medicine, and it should last 7-14 days...and as long as his fever doesn't come back or he doesn't start pulling at his ears, just let it run its course...

However last night he woke up at 3am coughing and crying...ahhhhh! And stayed up for a couple of hours...AHHH! He hasn't done that since he was like 8 weeks old and that was not a fun time. And he has had the hardest time going down tonight, and bedtime is usually a breeze around here. Keeping my fingers crossed that my little 12-hour-sleeper will be back tonight.  The four hours of sleep I had last night were just not enough.  The good thing is that he seems to feel fine when he's awake. Just praying he gets better soon - that cough is pitiful to hear from such a sweet little thing.  Okay, it's 9:52 pm and I'm going to bed. I think that's one of the earliest on record for me. Goodnight!