Merry Christmas 2009

This Christmas was a little better than last year. As you can probably guess, or remember for those that were there, Braden was sick last year at Christmas. In fact, he had RSV and he was miserable. Also, Brianna started feeling sick on the day of Christmas, so overall we did not have a good Christmas because of illness in the family. Luckily, we didn't have sickness in the Dickerson family, but we still had an eventful Christmas that I don't want to repeat.

Now don't get me wrong, Christmas was enjoyable for the most part.

Robert's mom, sister, nephew, and boyfriends of his mom and sister came to visit us from Georgia the week before Christmas. I cooked, cooked, and cooked some more while they were here. In fact, I think I cooked more in those four days while they were here than I do in an entire month! We opened presents and had a traditional Christmas meal. We were even able to go to Shananiganz with the entire family, including Braden, and had a blast. The girls played with their Nana and Bill and got to do all the games. Robert, Dawn, Rob, James, and I were able to bowl while watching Braden at the same time. In fact, I bowled one of my highest games ever. After that we were even able to go to dinner at Chili's and have a good time. We enjoyed their visit and hated to see them go.

Christmas eve we went out to dinner at On the Border and it was snowing! We didn't get much, but for Texas it was exciting. Also, we were going to have a White Christmas!! After dinner, we went a looked at some Christmas lights and took the kids home to open their ornaments we give to them every year.

Bailey always get a Precious Moments ornament because she is my precious first child.


Brianna always gets a Cherished Teddies ornament because she's my Brianna Bear.



(We have decided to get Braden an elf ornament for Christmas each year, so this is his first one. Last year, I got him a commemorative ornament for his 1st Christmas.)

The next morning everything started off pleasant.



The kids opened their presents from Santa...







and then we started getting ready to go over to my mom's to spend the day with them. Right before we were beginning to leave one of the most horrific events of my life occurred and I words cannot express the agony and fear that I experienced that day and how traumatized I was....

I was upstairs with Braden and the gate was latched so that he wouldn't fall down the stairs. The girls needed to come upstairs to finish getting ready, so I decided to lift them over the gate as opposed to opening it and letting them up. See the gate was a pain for me to latch and I was being lazy and didn't want to have to redo it. That was a decision that I would soon regret. As I lifted Bailey over the gate her foot caught the latch and pulled it up, which then released it. Unfortunately, Braden was leaning on the gate, so down the stairs he went on his stomach. Everything happened in slow motion for me, but I know that it was all a matter of seconds. I went running after him screaming the entire time. Horrible thoughts were running through my head that I don't even want to share because you can only imagine if you are a parent. While all of this is going on Robert runs out of the laundry room to see what's going on. In the meantime, I see Braden getting closer to the bottom of the stairs and see his head finally hit a stair and he's about to roll over. I then lunge forward trying to get him for fear of him breaking his neck and in the process I lose my balance. As Robert gets to the top of the stairs he sees me tumbling down the entire way. Luckily, Braden didn't have a single scratch or bruise and was just scared, probably because of all the screaming from his mother. However, I wasn't so lucky. I didn't break any bones, thank goodness, but I had rug burn all over my hands and legs and bruises all over my entire right leg. Although, I wouldn't trade any of them to put a single scratch on my son's body. Needless to say, I was very traumatized and cried quite a bit that day, but I am so thankful that Braden was okay. We are definitely going to get a new gate and it's going to latch into the wall and be a lot more secure. Lesson learned.....

Luckily, the rest of the day was calm and relaxing. I had a hard time getting horrific images out of my mind, but the kids were fine and had an enjoyable Christmas at my mom's. We fried a turkey and had all the traditional food, so it was yummo! The kids opened more presents and of course were excited to spend the day with their Nana, Papa, and Aunt Brittany (Teresa had to work that day and Tyler was with his dad).

That weekend Papa, Uncle Robert, Aunt Linda, Melinda, and Josh came up to visit, so we had MORE presents to open with the kids. It was nice for the kids, but I kept thinking 'where am I going to put all of this stuff?!'

I had a couple of days of rest before we had more company coming to visit. Gary, Martha, and Mawmaw Dickerson came to visit us for the New Year and celebrate Christmas one more time. I cooked some more, we had more presents to open, and more memories to create. I always love when Gary comes to visit because little projects around the house finally get done. One of them being the garage was cleaned out so that I could park in it. Hallelujah!

So, Christmas this year was eventful, memorable, and for the most part enjoyable. I was exhausted after celebrating it for what seemed like two weeks, but enjoyed every minute. Now I just wish I had one more week of vacation to recover....