Christmas

I just loved Christmas this year. It really was pretty magical. One of my favorite traditions we started this year was each night before bed we'd gather around the tree and read a Christmas story and sing a Christmas song. Some nights Neil would get out his guitar and play while we sang. I started this because the kids don't know any Christmas songs and now they do. Their favorites are of course the silly ones like Rudolf and Jingle Bells and Frosty. We don't put our presents under the tree until the kids are in bed on Christmas Eve so we put all the Christmas books under the tree instead.
Our annual 2 am Christmas morning picture. This year I actually had all the presents wrapped a couple days before Christmas and I was so excited to go to bed early on Christmas Eve but that didn't happen. I was up until 2 and Neil 4am. We stayed late at Allison's and then got home and had to get cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I had been cooking all day for the Christmas Eve meal and Christmas morning so the kitchen was a mess so we spent all night cleaning because I wanted to have everything ready so we could enjoy Christmas morning. Luckily the kids didn't get up until 7am. They all got in bed and snuggled with us and we made them wait while Neil and I took a shower and got ready for the day. I knew if I didn't do it first thing it wouldn't happen.

Waiting anxiously for the green light. Neil puts up the baby gates on top of each other so they can't go down the stairs. They can get glimpses from the railing though.

Lucy just chewed on Mikey's ball all morning.

Why does every kid this age make this cheesy face? It's pretty cute though. I keep it simple on Christmas Day so that we can just enjoy the day and play with the kids. This year I made a breakfast casserole, yogurt parfaits and orange julius. We didn't eat breakfast until 10:30. For lunch I had just made/bought a bunch of dips so we just had a dip bar with lots of chips, crackers, bread, cheese and summer sausage. We started the tradition last year of opening one gift and then playing with that one until we were tired of it and then we got to open another one. At first I didn't think I'd like this but I love it. You don't get that greedy feeling of opening more and more presents as fast as you can. It allows the kids to actually remember what they got when the days over. So we opened two gifts and had breakfast, opened two more and took naps. Is that awful to make your kids take naps on Christmas Day? Conner and Sam didn't go to sleep but Neil, I, Lucy and Mikey crashed. We finished opening gifts around 6:30 at night.

The boys are really getting into star wars so these action figures were a hit. They played all morning with them.

Grandma and Grandpa Hibbert along with Grant and Stephanie came to visit. Grandpa was nice to play 3-D Blokus with the boys. I think Conner has beat me every time we've played.

Grandma, Grant, Stephanie and Neil were busy making candy houses. Our kids had previously made some but Neil was so busy helping them he never made one himself and really wanted too. He went all out making a replica of our house. It got too late that he didn't get to decorate it. The boys were more than happy to help on the following FHE.

Here are the finished products. We had pizza for dinner that night. I was not hungry so we didn't eat until 8. It was a fabulous day and I loved being able to spend it at home.

Kids coming down the stairs Christmas morning. Sammy with his now over 100 dinosaurs.