Santa Done Came to Town

Well, now Christmas is gone and I find myself taking down all those decorations I worked so hard to put up. I'm kind of sad because I didn't even remember to take a picture of any of our Christmas spirit while it was there. I really did get to decorate so much more this year too! dangit! Oh well, there is always next year huh? It was a great Christmas this year. We got to celebrate it a million different times. First was the trip a couple weeks prior to alabama to enjoy the Noel with my mom's side of the family. I'm glad we all still get together and see each other, even if it is just once or twice a year. I love my family and I think living away really makes me appreciate them =)
This is where all Hades broke loose. The Thursday before Christmas I woke up, ready to enjoy my day off and finish up Christmas presents when suddenly I went from absolutely normal, to balled up on the living room floor crying. For half an hour I convinced myself that the knife stabbing in my abdomin/whole body was really bad gas (which I assumed I had never felt before). Man, gas seriously hurts.......or so I thought. Haha. I finally gave in and called Justin who rushed home and wisked me away to the hospital. And after spending the entire day in a hospital bed with, not one, but TWO IVs and doctors poking and proding they realized it was a bit more than bad gas =) I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured (who knew I even had an ovarian cyst in the first place?) Apparently I have a lot of them but the doc says they won't cause me any harm, just pain if they rupture. So I was relieved, not of the pain of course, but of the fact that the world will not be deprived of the future Tyner kiddies! So for the next few days/week I still had some pain here and there but now I can thankfully say, I feel normal again.....YAY!

The saturday before christmas we spent the day with Charlie and Rachel. They are seriously TOO generous. We got too many presents to count, one of which Justin is really excited to try, our new smoker. I loved Charlie's reaction to the gift I made for him, he is such a cry-baby and so is his son.....I just LOVE it! Jon, Ang, Jack, Jo and James were all there and we had tons of fun.
The next day we all went to church and then headed to Mom Wow's house for yet another celebration. We ate dinner and headed to the candle light service at church. This is my favorite service of the whole year, not because of the music or sermon, but because you just get a chill when thousands of people in one room pass a flame around and then all hold them up while singing Silent Night. Here is a picture of it from last year (I decided to refrain from taking another picture in the middle of church this year). It truly was so beautiful, pictures can't do it justice. So we headed back to the house and opened presents and Ms. Joy read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" as she does every year. Last year we started a new twist to the tradition though. Instead of her just reading it as we all listen, we would have her read every line and we would finish the last word............we were all crying before we could finish. I mean really, who knew "the stockings were hung by the chimney with DUCKTAPE" or "away to the window I flew like a BAT OUT OF HELL"?? It was quite the christmas story indeed. So anyway, Justin and I came back to our very own love nest so that we could wake up Christmas morning and clebrate together. Aunt Polly stayed with us that night too, in our guest bedroom. Well, since our tradition thus far is to wake up extremely early on christmas morning open our presents and then head on up to bama for the rest of the day. We did just that. I got Justin a new GPS system so he will always know where he is in those woods he always hangs out in. And I got an awesome new photo printer(I love it). It is fantastic....scrapbooks beware! And also, my new entertainment center! Prissy got some rawhide candy canes in her stocking, she proceeded to run all over the house carrying her prize! She so cute.As we are digging in our presents and stockings Aunt Polly comes out of her room and just laughs. We soon realize it is probably due to our very own Christmas tradition, the "underwear hats". Whenever we get new underwear in our stockings, we have to wear them on our heads while we open presents. The only hitch was that I forgot to put undies in Justin's stocking this year, so he had to wear some of my new ones on his head. I gave him the ones with the frilly legs and all. I cannot believe I didn't take any pictures of us as fasionistas, but I forgot =( Well, soon after we packed up and headed to spend some time with my family. Every year my mom cooks the biggest breakfast and all 20 of my brothers and sisters come over and we all eat together. We spent the rest of the day playing with new toys and later that night went to the movies. We Are Marshall is a great movie, I love football inspiration movies. Not to mention that it is a true story and Bobby Bowden's character was in the movie being the amazing man that he is. Justin had to come home the next day, cause some sad people have to work these days. But I got to stay until Thursday! yay. My mom took off work on Wednesday and we spent the whole day with Sharry galavanting around and shopping! it was so much fun and I realized that the magnet my mom gave me was seriously true....."Mirror, Mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all!" I'm not sad about it.
Well, that was the end of Christmas but just the beginning of New Year! Saturday night we had some boys over for the monthly UFC pay per view. They all spent the night and we loaded up to church the next morning..........I don't know how they do it since they stay up until 4:30! But the next night was the best. We had even more people over for New Years! It was couples' Trivial Pursuit (the DVD edition, which I highly recommend and dominate by the way) and then watching the ball drop and getting our ever so anticipated kisses. As for New Year's resolutions, we have already gotten a head start on the usual, "I'm going to start exercising" one. We started a while ago meeting a few couples from Sunday school at the church gym on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Justin is hard core and I think the body building mentality is back! As for other resolutions self-betterment, and spiritual growth is the core of them all. Now I am going back to school tomorrow, the break is officially over =(