merry christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I have a ton of back blogging catch-up to do, but for now, here's our Christmas Day re-cap. I'm warning you now though, I never take great photos on Christmas. It's the one day that I try to let go of all the details and just enjoy the day...

Last night we told the children not to wake us up before 7am, so this morning I wake up to Allie saying, "mom, we even waited until 7:10 so get up!" Ugh, Christmas morning comes a little too early for the mom who stays up late wrapping everyting! Everyone was happy with their gifts, lots of fun to be had. The big hits of the day were Ethan's race track with shake and go cars...It entertains boys of all ages! In fact, Ethan wasn't interested in unwrapping anything else. Taylor unwrapped an amp with a confused look on his face, then a lightbulb went off above his head just in time for dad to come around the corner with an electric guitar! His first words were, "sweet, now maybe Sam Gerber (a kid from our ward) will let me be in his band!" When all the gifts were unwrapped I asked everyone if they had a good Christmas. Everyone was in a great mood, "oh yes mom, it's been an awesome Christmas". Then Rich says to me, "hey I think I have one more gift for you that I left upstairs". So he brings down the box, I unwrap it and yell, "oh my gosh, dad bought me a wii! Just kidding, it's for you guys! Spencer started screaming and then cried, yes I said cried REAL tears! It was so great.

After the gifts were all opened, we spent the morning playing the Wii for a while, I took a nap on the couch and Ethan never did open up his other two gifts. He was too distracted by the unwrapped things by his stocking, Toy Story and Finding Nemo figurines and of course the race track. He is the one who lines the cars up like that btw, it's one of his favorite things, having cars all lined up like that. Plus, check out those Cars pjs he's wearing, could those be any cuter?

Breakfast casserole is a Christmas morning tradition that I love, because you make the night before, and it takes about 90 minutes to bake so it cooks while you're opening gifts. Just about the time your stomach starts growling, it's done. I get to serve a great breakfast (usually with OJ, muffins and fruit) and almost zero work that morning. It was a really good batch too, YUM.

So we stayed in our pjs all day, played the Wii, played lots of electric guitar, had several visitors and then Wayne and Eileen came over for Christmas dinner. Mom taught the kids how to make pinch cake with marshmallows and other surprise treats hidden in each pinch. Spencer has been really into making wierd faces for the camera lately.We served them WITH dinner. In fact, I was so excited to eat the treat part of dinner, that I forgot to photograph the wonderful ham and potatoes meal. Is is just me or does ham and potatoes just seem right on Christmas day? It has to be one of my favorite meals, I try to serve it more than just once a year. So, that's it, Christmas was good, I'm so glad to have this blogging outlet now to record the details. I will record more about the family parties, Christmas Eve and other happenings later. For now, I'm going to see if there's anything in Little Dreamer's 50% off sale that I would like to spend some Christmas cash on!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!