Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is such an exciting time, we can't wait to see what Santa has brought!  This is the first glimpse of Santa's deliveries:

The stockings were no longer hung by the chimney with care, they were too full.  Santa left them on the couch instead.

Santa brought Kayla a Christmas dress and a friend for her Kit doll--a Ruthie doll.  Kayla has had Kit for a couple of years and she has been wanting Ruthie to go with her.  Kit was already downstairs to welcome Ruthie with a plate of cookies.

Santa brought Hunter a Batman costume and an electric scooter.

Santa brought Tanner a Robin costume and a Thomas &Friends train set, Tanner loves trains!

Grandparents and aunts in Utah sent more costumes and toys for the boys and doll paraphernalia for Kayla.  All in all, the kids were  spoiled royally!  The presents are opened, now it's time to play!

Studly super-heros! 

 Daddy is working on putting Tanner's train track together.  (FYI--not as easy as GeoTrax)

Project complete, Tanner loves it!

 More projects for Daddy--assembling a doll bed.

 Project complete--one groovy bed. 

Kayla brought ALL her doll-stuff down to do a major set-up.  She's talking to Grandma, letting her know how much she loves the handmade doll cape and pajamas.  Grandma is so talented!

Jason tested Hunter's scooter out first, works great!

Hunter zipping along.

Tanner's tired out from all that playing but he's determined to keep at it!

We had a wonderful Christmas morning.  In the evening, we went to Jason's godparents' for prime rib dinner, SOOOO yummy!  It's another yearly tradition that we love.

Christmas Eve

We always look forward to Christmas Eve at Oma and Grandpa's house.  Oma is from Germany and her tradition is to do all the gift-giving on Christmas Eve so we exchange gifts with Jason's family that night.  Oma makes a table full of delicious appetizers, her homemade wontons and sausage balls are famous--Jason looks forward to them all year!  After we eat, we visit for a bit and then the present-opening-fest begins.  To say Oma and Grandpa are generous is an understatement, Oma loves to shop and give.

Kayla and Oma 

 Hunter and cousin, Kyle

 Tanner with Bonnie and Heather

 Uncle Steve and Grandpa

 Captain America and Spiderman

(aka Tanner & Hunter)

Jason always tries to bring some goofy gifts that will make people laugh.  This year he had 3 people open a "special"gift at once--a mousepad with a picture of him in front of an American flag.  As you can see, the recipients did laugh. :)

 Grandpa, Sloan, and Bonnie receiving a Jason mousepad.

The prize-winning goofy gift went to his godmother, Bonnie.  She is a big fan of Muse and particularly of the band leader--Matthew Bellamy.  Jason always teases her that Matthew looks like a leprechaun.  To prove it, he printed out a big picture of Matthew,  and attached it to a Lucky Charms cereal box.  That was his present to Bonnie this year, she loved it!

 Is that a special gift or what? :)

Away in a Manger...

After a 2 month hiatus from blogging, I am back in business! (Hopefully) I typically find time to blog late at night or on Sundays but I’ve been too exhausted at night and too busy on Sundays--too busy napping, hee, hee. :)  Pregnancy just zaps my energy so that is my excuse. We are expecting a baby boy on May 1st and we are all very excited.

Lately we have been busy with Christmas activities. For the record, I love Christmas---the lights, the trees, the baking, the decorating, the music, the stories, the movies, the presents, the family gatherings, the good will, the remembering of Christ--it is such a wonderful and exciting time of year and it is always over too fast for me. This morning, Kayla asked if she could do the Family Home Evening lesson tonight. Since I’m generally scrambling at the last minute for a lesson, I was happy to say yes. She planned a nativity pageant--wrote a script, assigned everyone parts, set up a scene, and gathered props and costumes. I realized why we should put kids in charge of this kind of thing because I wouldn't have gone to that much work! We decided to video it and it turned out really sweet. Everyone had two parts except for Tanner and me. I was the narrator and Tanner was asleep in bed.  Jason was an angel and a shepherd, Kayla was Mary and a shepherd, Hunter was Joseph and a shepherd.  This brought back memories from my childhood of acting out the Christmas story.  Then again, we usually had 10 children to work with (I have 9 brothers and sisters) or we were with our 30+ cousins doing it. We only had 4 people tonight but it still worked out beautifully. I was thankful to Kayla for putting it together. It was the perfect Family Home Evening on the Monday before Christmas, it helped us all focus on what it is really all about.