Whew! Last minute adventures!!

With all of the hustle and buslte of the end of the school semester, etc... getting ready for Christmas at home had basically amounted to just getting the presents purchased. We did some cooking for snack type foods and wanted to do more, but time did not allow for it. So... we postponed to do some on Christmas day, rather than just play with toys. The kids liked that idea, so I relaxed a bit and decided to let that slide until then. Today, Aubri and I had planned on a leisurely wrapping/ cookie decorating day with Grandpa and possibly going out to see the Christmas lights before reading the Christmas story and going to bed.

Knowing that the wrapping was the last thing to do on the list, we slept in late, went to Grandpa's to eat a late brunch together and got ready to start wrapping. As I sorted out the gifts, which had been delivered to Grandpa's, or to our house and stashed away, I realized that a very major gift was missing!!! Andy had asked for a Nintendo DS for over a year. He has been very consistent in saying that was the one thing he wanted for a long time, especially when talking about his "Santa list". This little boy is so busy and active that I do not worry a bit about letting him have some sedentary time to sit and play a game some of the time ! In fact a few minutes of quiet are greatly appreciated by this old mom! :-)

We searched all over and since Grandpa had been the one to actually purchase this item in person, rather than the online shopping I have become so fond of, he started to question if he had actually purchased it. He got quite distressed that his memory is failing him and we decided to go to Best Buy to see if it actually did get purchased and if not we would get one and all would be just fine. Aubri stayed home with the little ones for the short time we planned to be out. She does a great job with them and I am so blessed! At the store, they were able to look it up and it had been purchased.

We decided. or rather I kept trying to convince him, that he must have been interrupted while he was putting it away and that it must be in the house somewhere, just not anywhere he was hiding anything else.

Since we were not sure that we would find it in time, however, we tried to find another one, so that Andy would have his desired gift tomorrow morning. WOW! Every child in town must have also asked for the same thing and the stores did not keep enough in stock. We raced into store after store. Each one filled with last minute shoppers! Our 2o minute jaunt took well over 4 hours!! Well, I hobbled in as fast as I could and my dad still kept up with me. No place we went had any... None at all! I truly did not know what to do, neither did my dad, but we kept calmly telling each other that it would be OK, while inside just feeling absolutely awful.

As we stopped at the grocery store quickly before going home, I called Aubri again to check on her and the kids and decided that I had to also enlist her eyes to try to help find the gift while they waited for us. I did not want her to give away what she was looking for to Andy though. I told her to look in all the places Grandpa might have just set a plastic bag. I told her not to look IN anything, just on every shelf in the garage, in the den, kitchen etc.... She already knew not to let Andy know what she was looking for and really took this new mission seriously!!! I should have enlisted her help with this so much earlier!!! I was just too worried to think straight, I guess....

Within 5 minutes she called me back telling me that she FOUND IT!! My baby girl, who is such a responsible young lady now, saved her little brother's AND her mom and grandpa's holiday!!!

She found it right it plain sight... on top of the book case, where Pop had evidently set it when bringing it in to hide, but was disrupted. He felt so badly that he was losing his mind. It did not matter how many times I tried to reassure him that I do the same thing far too often. It is so easy to start doing something and get interrupted, set things down to take care of the interruption and then have no clue where you left them. Less than 1 hour later, I was searching for some picture frames that I knew I had, but had no idea where I put them! Yep, same kind of situation and they were also found!

The Heavens were guarding my two littlest ones surprises for tomorrow morning since Aubri and I quickly wrapped gifts, Grandpa went to see Evelyn and Andy and Sera enjoyed Grandpa's wide selection of digital TV holiday specials. Both of the were totally clueless that Aubri and I were up to anything! If they did know, they were extremely cooperative in allowing for some surpise tomorrow!

Our Christmas eve was not what I planned it to be, but all is done and we enjoyed our time together, so it went just as it should!! Suprises are all ready for tomorrow morning! We will open gifts at Grandpa's tomorrow so that he can be there with us without having to get out. It will be so nice to have him with us as the kids enjoy their suprises!! We will just have to read our Bible story together, decorate some cookies and go see the lights tomorrow!