Merry Belated Christmas

I know its a little foolish that I'm blogging about Christmas in the month of February but this just goes to show you how far behind I am on life in general. Christmas for us was over two weeks of fun family times. We started the trip by stopping in Erie to meet up with some Academy kids from the summer. We all crashed at one girl's house for some winter fun. We only spent one night there but we got the chance to catch up, do some dangerous sledding, and relive some summer times. There were quite a few of us there and it was wonderful to see everyone and get excited for those coming back again next summer.

After our stayover we made the rest of the trip up to the Faro house. It was pretty snowy there. Amy and Mama Faro had planned a shower for me but the snow ended up keeping some people away. Who'd have thought??? A blizzard in Rochester! It was still a great shower. Sadly, the only pictures we have are of me opening presents. We didn't catch the cake before it got cut and we didn't get one of us together at all. Big oversight. I was largely blessed with sage advice, baby gifts, and good food. What pregnant lady doesn't appreciate good food?!? :-) The only drawback was some info that came out during the shower games (thanks Amy). First, we established that as a child I had no ambitions and second, we all got a chance to guess how large around I was. Hmm, good times. On a higher note, the games did point out that Aaron and I were both pretty amiable babies so I'm hoping that is genetic!

The rest of the week was similar to other Faro visits...games, movies, and laughs! Christmas took a different twist this year when the "oldest" (Aaron) and "bossy" (Amy) siblings planned our gift giving for us. We had a hoodie exchange where we each drew a name. We had a DVD exchange in which Dad concocted a sweet game using quarters, states, capitals, and stealing, and finally we each gave gag gifts based on some funny memory or inside jokes. There is no shortage of jokes between the siblings in that family so the gag gifts produced some good times! It took us forever to finish opening presents!

After the Faro Christmas, we drove down to my side of the family for the O'Flaherty Christmas. We opened our presents when we got there (web cams seemed to be a good idea for all) and had a good relaxing time there. I slept in, read a lot, caught up with some old friends, and opened lots more presents! Mom got the ball rolling with Christmas presents for the baby already even though it's not out yet to open them! The baby even got a stocking! Sneaky tricks. New Years Eve really showed our age...we watched a few movies, ate some food, played some games, and practically fell asleep before the ball dropped. Right before we made the trip home, I had another baby shower. Mom and Jen put a lot of work into it and it was a great time. I was spoiled yet again! We played some more games, ate some more food (which included a huge fruit salad in the shape of a carriage), and of course, opened some more presents. I made out like a bandit. Between Christmas presents and both showers we actually had to switch cars with my parents to get everything home. The boys actually loaded all the stuff into the car at the shower and we started the drive right from there! We couldn't see out of any of the car windows! Not safe but we made it.

Well, there's much more to blog about since Christmas but I'm gonna space them out. We've encountered many house changes, had a few house guests, and I've experienced many things to rant about...it's all still to come :-)