Christmas Prep

Aside from the accident, our Christmas in North Carolina began quite normal and wonderful. 

Grampy bought a lovely tree for the kids and happily waited on them to decorate it!

All the kids were involved but Fletcher took special interest in the project.

 Perhaps because the rest of them decided to attack Grampy!

While Torr was being tended to in the hospital, with his mom and dad close by, Pat and I took over responsibilities for the other three kids.  We loaded them all up for the very beautiful live nativity at Cartoogechaye Baptist.  By the way, this may be the ONLY picture of all three of these rascals smiling - of course, random car/iphone shot.  They had a great time!

Syd and Finn were such pals (you may recall they are only 3 days apart).  Watching movies together and bunking up so that Finn wouldn't be scared with his brother in the hospital that night.

With Ashley and Erik still in Asheville with Torr, final Christmas prep was left to Pat, myself and Jami.  Despite super cute faces like this, the thought of last minute Christmas shopping with all three was a little too much.

So Pat and I dumped the kids at Aunt Jami's and ran out to play Santa.  She was a trooper - prepping our entire Christmas meal with these three under foot.

Santa's workshop was moved to Grampy's basement.  With nearly no presents wrapped and down two adults - it was most definitely an operation of speed over quality!  

Torr made it home early Christmas Eve evening - just in time for our traditional true story of Christmas (made exceptionally kid friendly via the iPad nativity app!) and Happy Birthday Jesus.

 Ready and waiting for Santa!