Merry Christmas to All!

I hope everyone a very Merry Christmas! Ours got off to a rough start, but all ended up working out well. For starters, Brian's dad Kenny, had a mild heart attack on Weds. and had to get three stints put in on Thursday. They released him from the hospital Fri. afternoon, but then he had more chest pains and had to be rushed right back Fri. night. They gave him some more meds and let him go again Sunday morning (X-mas eve). He is doing fine now and participated in Christmas festivities despite the whole ordeal. The bright side to all this is that he gets a few weeks off work and considering he works at Sears, this the best time of year not have to report to the mall everyday.
On top of all this, our heater went out Friday night and of course it was X-mas weekend, so the chances of finding a reasonably priced repairman two days before x-mas was slim to none. Luckily, we have a fire place and a baseboard heater and it hasn't been ridiculously cold so we made it through with fairly little discomfort. Also, the kids got Brian a heated mattress pad for x-mas this year, so I had told them if they helped me around the house on Sat. I would let them open one present after dinner. Since I knew what Brian's present was, I told them they could give us ours early too, so Brian and I had a nice warm bed to sleep in thanks to the kiddos! The repairman is here now so hopefully we will have heat again within the hour, yippee!
Our dog Dixie was also sick over the weekend, she started acting funny on Friday when she didn't want to come in and then she wasn't eating or being social. But again, its x-mas weekend and vets are hard to come by so we just kept an eye on her and by Monday she was starting to get back to normal. I still don't know what was wrong with her but she seems better now so I guess it passed.
We went to my moms on X-mas eve and to Kenny's family on X-mas day. It was nice to see everyone together and we got caught up on all the family gossip. Alena loves all her new babies she got for x-mas. She feeds them and rocks them and actually plays pretend, it is so cute! The boys got lots of new games which we plan on playing while they are on winter break this week. Since Brenda is in California, we still have x-mas to do with her after the new year. We also have our x-mas/new years get together with all our friends and then another x-mas function later on in January with Brenda's extended side of the family. So we still have 3 Christmases to go, I swear it never ends! As soon as we are done with all the Christmases, it will be Brian's 30 b-day on Feb. 8!Thanks to everyone for making this a great Christmas and we hope everyone has a safe and happy new year!