Christmas

We went to a different church on Christmas Eve.  Our neighbors invited us to church with them.  Miraculously, we were all ready early so I decided to take a family pic.  I tried for like 2 months to get everyone together at the same time and looking nice and actually take a picture.  That didn't happen (which is why we skipped the Christmas cards this year), but on this day, I actually got a pic. 

Then on Christmas morning we went to our own church.  At first, I was not happy that we had to get them all ready and go to church on Christmas morning.  But once we went, I've decided it's the perfect way to start off Christmas and I wish we had church first thing every year.  I enjoyed the music and the program and it just seemed more Christmas-y to me when we focused on the true meaning of Christmas.  We had to be ready to leave at 8:30 am so there was no way we were opening presents before that.  We made the kids wait till after church.   Waiting anxiously to go downstairs. (These first pics were taken before they got their hair done so ignore the hair.)

First glimpse:

They got to walk through and look, but no touching! 

We had our traditional breakfast of Toaster Struedel.  We've had that tradition since Katie was a baby so this is year 12.  Also, they all get a new stuffed animal that's wrapped up and sitting at their place at the table.  We've done that tradition for years too.  They can open their animal before breakfast.  We always eat first, before opening gifts so the animal is to kinda tide them over.

Caleb tried to sneak over to the stockings during breakfast.

Interesting that they all got dressed nicely and on time and everyone ate fast.  We had time to just sit around waiting to leave... before 8:30 am.  Can we have Christmas every Sunday?! 

We came home from church and changed out of our church clothes, back into our jammies.  (The clean freak in me washed them while they were eating breakfast, so don't worry - they had clean jammies on). 

Finally time for presents!!  The thing I absolutely love about Christmas is that my kids are more excited to give than receive.  They all get gifts for each other (yes, that's 56 presents) and they were very deliberate and thoughtful in their gifts.  All through December it was so fun to hear them ALL say things like, "I can't wait till Christmas so I can give you your present!" or "You're going to LOVE what I got you."  When we started opening gifts, each one of them chose to give their gifts first and were more excited about those than their actual presents.  It's things like that that make me LOVE Christmas. I got pics of each of them giving to everyone, but I won't post all of those because that would be way too many pics.  But here are a few.

Michael got Caleb a tiny cloak that matches his.  (Thank you Grandma for making awesome cloaks!)

Anna got Michael a Skylander.  She was so excited that she found Stealth Elf.

I LOVE this pic:

OK, a cute story.  Lydia (Miss Creative) decided she wanted to get me some truffles for Christmas and make a pillow that was shaped like a truffle.  Michael (the master of design) and dad helped.  They worked on it on two different occasions and it ended up taking them a lot longer than they planned.  On Christmas Eve day, Blake told Lydia that there just wasn't enough time to finish it.  She was very disappointed.  Blake felt bad for her so he stayed up and finished it for her.  Nathan took this picture because obviously I wasn't allowed to see it.

These pictures of me are absolutely horrible (although my Cookie Monster pjs are cute!), but I have to share them to show you Lydia's face when she saw the pillow was done.  She gave it to me in a kinda melancholy way, like "here's your half done present".  And look at that surprise when she saw it with me.  My sweet Lydia and my sweet hubby!

And after she gave me my present:

My Milk Chocolate Lindor Truffle Pillow:

Another cute story.  Michael gave Anna a nutcracker 3 years ago for Christmas.  Ever since then she started collecting nutcrackers and Michael gives her one every year for Christmas as well.  Anna saw a huge 24" one at the store and instantly fell in love with it.  She wanted to buy it then and there.  But we have a "wait 24 hours rule" to avoid impulse buying.  She complained that it wouldn't be there when we went back, I assured her it would and we went home.  Then I secretly took Michael back to buy it.  Of course, 24 hours later Anna still remembered it, but I had to tell her it was gone.  She was SO disappointed... until Christmas morning.  She cried when she opened it.  Then she cradled it in her arms and stroked it's hair and kept saying "It's so beautiful!" and "Thank you so much Michael."  See why I love Christmas?!

Michael got a laptop.  He's been wanting one/saving up FOREVER, but we told him he had to earn enough trust.  He finally did and he looks pretty happy, don't you think?

Nathan got a keyboard.  I thought he knew he was getting it because he kept hinting that he wanted one, but he was completely surprised.  I took a video of him getting it, but it turned out too dark.  He was excited though.

Caleb got a remote control Lightning McQueen cars which were an absolute hit!  You have to hold your tongue just right to make them work though.

Katie got a Leapster and a ton of games.  The other girls each got an iPod Touch.  This is a typical sight in our house now:

That's probably (more than) enough pictures for now.  We had a wonderful Christmas!  And we had a great Christmas break too.  Blake was off for 11 days and the kids were off for 15.  It was so much fun to be together for that long.  I was sad when they all went back.  We spent the first half of our break relaxing, laying around, doing puzzles, playing with new Christmas toys.  The last half, we decided to stop being lazy and get to work.  We stained the garden boxes, Blake and the boys (Caleb included) built a garden box for the neighbor, we painted Michael and Caleb's room, and refinished and painted their dressers.  I will post pics when I get the finishing touches done on their room.