clanMcGraw.com

Where to begin?

We spent Christmas Eve at home, baking cookies to leave for Santa:

After the boys went to bed, we set out to finish wrapping presents, or at least we tried. Brandon came to the top of the stairs twice, just to see if we’d gone to bed yet. After all, Santa wouldn’t come until *everyone* was asleep. Amanda wound up laying down with him for about an hour before he finally drifted off.

While Amanda finished wrapping presents, I started putting together toys… Only to discover that I had forgotten to buy something: Batteries. I set out at 11:00 on Christmas Eve, searching for batteries. There was only 1 place open. It was an Amoco convenience store. Luckily, they had the type of batteries I needed. They were expensive, but worth it.

On Christmas Morning, Caleb seemed a bit overwhelmed by it all…

…but Brandon got right into the spirit of things.

We then spent Christmas Day at Maw-Maw’s house…

…and Christmas Night at Mimi’s house.

It was a very long day. We didn’t get to my parent’s house until 11:00. The boys fell asleep about 68 seconds after leaving Diane’s house. We opened presents with my parents the next morning. Unfortunately, my camera lens fogged over, so I don’t have any good pictures of that. I really wish I had one of my parent’s face when they opened up their new DVD player. They had to decide whether to keep it, or the one they bought as a gift for each other on Christmas Eve (They wound up keeping both).

So why is Brian grinning ear to ear, with blood on his face, in his camo clothing?

Click on the picture above. Warning: PETA-type people will probably find this picture offensive.

Well, I’m winding down my work day early. Time to go home and snuggle in with the family for the rest of the evening. Brandon’s excited that Santa will be stopping by tonight, and Caleb’s been walking around all day saying “Merry Christmas, Mommy.”

Here’s hoping that you and your family, wherever you gather, have a wonderful Christmas. Rejoice in the miracle of Immanuel - God loved us enough to be with us, to be a sacrifice for us.

I leave you with the haunting question of my favorite Christmas Carol:

What child is this, who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap, is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?

I pray that you can answer as I do:

This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
Haste, haste to bring him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary!

Are you having problems viewing the pictures on clanMcGraw.com? Did the problems start recently?

If so, drop me an email or leave a comment. I had to put some measures in place to stop some bandwidth leaches, and I’ve found out that it also disables the in-line pictures on certain browsers.

Since Brandon was sick this past week, we had to reschedule his Birthday party for January. So when we asked him where he wanted to go to eat on his actual birthday (with all of our family), I really expected to hear him say Chuck E. Cheese.

Nope. The Birthday Boy wanted Tacos.

So off we went to Los Tarascos, where Brandon was the Birthday Boy!

We took Caleb & Brandon to see Santa today. Last year Caleb had a screaming fit, trying not to sit with Santa. So how would it go this year?

Both boys did great. Caleb told Santa that he wanted a Billy Blazes, and some Little People (whew!) Brandon told Santa that he wanted some Rescue Heroes too, and then proceeded to rattle off about just about every RH figure on the market. We might be in trouble there.

Happy 5th Birthday, Brandon!!

Santa Balls 2 - Played it once, 40000. Bring it on.

Hot Death Uno - When I was in college, I used to play UNO with some friends after church. Someone developed their own variant of the game, called Power UNO. It was fantastic. This game, Hot Death UNO, isn’t quite the same, but it’s still good, especially since you can download a version to play on Windows.

Yahoo! News - Deer Runs Through D.C. Subway Station

I spend pretty much all day in the woods, in Greene County, AL, hunting, and see nothing. There are pepople in D.C. who are waiting to get on the Subway, and they see a deer.

It’s not fair, but hilarious.