Merry Christmas to all!

I hope all of my friends and family have had a great Christmas holiday....I sure missed spending time with all of you this year. It was a "quiet" day at the Eckert household. By quiet I mean that we did not have any company as we have had in years past. The kids, on the other hand, were anything but quiet! But what can you expect, right? " )
I do have a funny story to share about Christmas Eve.... as many of you well know (since I complain about it quite often), I live in a very small house. Because there has been no room to hide Christmas presents inside the house, I have had to hide them in the trunk of my car. I am thankful for the Florida weather this time of year - I would never be able to get away with this in Michigan! " ) So.... because I was not able to hide the gifts in the house, I was not able to wrap the gifts, either (I didn't think it would be a good idea to wrap them and then put them BACK into the trunk of my car). So, as many parents do, I spent my Christmas Eve wrapping presents. But, the issue was not me wrapping gifts so much as it was with Tyler being awake until almost midnight! I had to strategically place myself into the corner of the living room (yes, I had to move some furniture out of the way) so that IF Tyler came into the living room, he'd see Jim first and not me. Well, that worked until Jim got up to do something and the next thing I know I look up to see Tyler standing there with his hands over his eyes! (yes, he was trying to be good and not ruin his suprise) I had to get up and explain to him that I was still up wrapping some of HIS gifts that I had gotten for him (not Santa) and I also explained to him that I still hadn't wrapped the gift that the kids got for Jim, either........he seemed to buy it........WHEW!
I think I finally made it to bed at 1:30 a.m. and then I was up again at 6:00 a.m. Ahh....gotta love the holidays! It was great to see the look on the kids' faces when they opened up their gifts, though. It is priceless. I will be posting some pics shortly......