Best. Christmas. Ever.

I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

We were supposed to close on the house on January 9th, but Jeff had other plans. Two days ago, I got the mail out of the mail box and went through it, separating junk from bills, like I always do. I saw a letter from a bank that we don't bank with. Usually, I just toss stuff like that and figure that they're trying to get us to switch banks, but this was the second one we'd gotten in two weeks, so I opened it.

It was sort of a statement looking thing, with Jeff's name on it. Something about transferring funds from one account to another, as requested, on certain dates, etc. I FREAKED. See, this past May, my purse was stolen and about 2 months ago, someone tried to open a credit card in my name. I've been a little more paranoid about ID theft ever since.

So I called Jeff, in an absolute panic, and asked him if he'd opened an account somewhere else. (We had planned on doing this after we moved and thought maybe he'd done it early) He said he didn't open an account, so I said I was going to call the bank immediately, to get to the bottom of this. I was worried about this hurting our ability to close on the house in January and was convinced someone had hacked into our bank account and had transferred everything.

As soon as I told him I was going to call the bank, he said, "No, don't do that."

That was weird, so I said, "What is going on?!"

He said, "Ok, the cat is out of the bag" and proceeded to spill the beans. He closed on the house last week and had been planning this as a surprise for a little more than 2 months. He'd set up a tree and decorations at the house and we were supposed to go over on Christmas Morning to see everything. (He was going to have our next door neighbor call us on xmas morning and tell us that water was pouring out of our basement door, so that he'd have an excuse to drive us over there.)

I was floored.

We decided that the surprise could still be salvaged and that we could take Andy over to the house on Christmas Eve and spend our first night there. After we got home from Louisville last night (Jeff's grandma has a xmas eve party every year) Jeff and Andy went to get Chinese food (a tradition of ours...it's the only place open on xmas eve!) and Ben and I went to the new house. I cleared the presents from under the tree (they were from Santa because we weren't supposed to be there until xmas morning) and about 5 minutes later, Jeff and Andy showed up. We told Andy that Santa set up the tree and the house, etc and that it was officially ours.

Oh. My. God.

You should have seen his face. (You can, too, as soon as I upload pictures. My camera is at the new house, I'm blogging from the old house.) The kid was jumping up and down and giggling and squealing. He turned to Jeff and said, "This is the best Christmas ever, Daddy!"

We ate our first meal off of paper plates as we sat on the tile in our kitchen. Santa left xmas jammies for everyone in their respective bedrooms and the boys put theirs on as soon as they had their very first bath in the new house. We borrowed a friend's air mattress and slept on the floor in front of the tree and fireplace.

The boys slept until 7:20 (which, if you ask me, was the REAL xmas miracle, seeing as how they're always up at the butt-crack of dawn) and we opened presents. The best line of the morning was right after Andy opened his castle from Santa. He looked at us and said, "Wow! Santa got me two castles! One to play with and one to live in!"

We all stayed in our xmas jammies and went to Jeff's parents' house and had a wonderful time. We had a great breakfast, Ben and I got to take a nap, the boys' scored even more goodies, the kids played with their cousins, we had a great lunch and then we headed back to the old house. Jeff let the dogs out, fed them, grabbed a few things and then took the boys back to the new house.

I stayed back so that I could pack up some dishes and some stuff from the fridge. I'm also waiting on a load of laundry from the dryer and as soon as that's out, I'm heading back home to join them for a late dinner and then bed.

Tomorrow, Ben goes with his Grandma Sue until Sunday so that Jeff and I can paint the rooms on the 2nd floor. (The whole interior of the house is one color, and although it's nice, we'd like some other colors in the bedrooms.) The beginning of next week is going to be mostly spent at this house, getting things boxed up and then we want to start moving stuff next weekend.

I want to wish everyone the merriest of merry Christmases and nothing but peace for the New Year. We are all so very blessed to have each other, especially during these times.

Stay tuned for pictures!