Christmas Day

We got home from the Jensen's a little late and sent the kids straight to bed. Which meant mom wrote letters, to Santa, for all of the kids and mom and dad even set out the cookies & milk. The kids each got one thing from Santa that they REALLY wanted plus a Christmas book that Santa chose out for them. Carson got Lego Harry Potter for the Wii. The girls each got a pillow pet. The big fat man did good this year and all the kids were happy with the loot he left.

After we saw the Santa gifts and looked in our stockings, we ate our traditional Christmas breakfast casserole, then opened all the other gifts. We actually had to wake up the kids this year, because when we were done with the gifts we were driving to CA. Ryan had to work Christmas Eve so the earliest we could drive down was Christmas day. We talked about waiting until the day after Christmas, but decided let's just drive Christmas day- it is only 5 hours and we have done it SO many times that they kids do super great in the car.

The picture above shows Ryan with an ornament that Morgan made. I don't know if you can tell, but the teacher had the kids put their whole hand in white paint, then the kids held the small ball ornament in the palm of their hand. After the paint dried, the kids turned each finger into a snowman. Carson also made an ornament at school he had me open it a few days before Christmas so we could hang it on the tree. It was his hand print with a picture of him in the middle, and a poem about cherishing this hand print cause it wouldn't be small forever and I lost it, just started crying right there. My kids are getting bigger and I am not sure it is my favorite thing.

These two pictures crack me up, because Ryan was genuinely excited for this gift. And it is Tupperware. Special tupperware that has snap together lids, no more searching for a lid that fits. He was thrilled and had the other tupperware out in the recycling bin in no time flat. These pictures are worth a thousand words and will be my favorites, of him, for a long time. He says that this new tupperware has changed his life, and I have only mentioned once about my pyrex lids disappearing into the recycling bin with the old tupperware. Now I guess I have mentioned it twice:)

Our family got this gift from Uncle Andrew and Aunt Maren. We love it- only we have to wait all the way to the end of May to use it- we can't wait. The following pictures are the kids enjoying some of their gifts. We took the kids to the Dollar Spot at Target to buy gifts for eachother. Cambryn was the most hilarious as she would take something and show it to Morgan or Carson and then say, "choose this for me!" She definitely didn't end up disappointed Christmas morning.

pajamas for her build a bear from mom and dad

littlest pet shops from mom and dad

a trick track with mighty beans from mom and dad

tigger from grandma and grandpa great and gloves from morgan

We went as a family to see Toy Story 3 at the theater. I missed the best part of the whole movie because someone needed to use the bathroom. So the day it came out on DVD I went and bought it. Our kids love Toy Story. We used to have Toy Story 1 & 2, on VHS. I knew I wanted to get the kids these two movies. And then I really wanted to get them the dolls too. The search was on. I had gotten the small(7in) hard plastic dolls at Walmart- I wasn't that excited about them. So Ryan and I looked on e-bay for some of the big(18in) soft dolls. We found some that we were almost going to bid on. Then I thought, I'll just check the Disney Store on-line and see what they have. I was way excited when I saw that they were having a buy one get one free sale on their 18in soft dolls. The excitement was short lived when I discovered they were out of stock. I then decided to call the store at the mall- on the off chance that they had the dolls, and were honoring the sale price. Score- they had all 4 dolls that we wanted and held them all day until 6 o'clock until Ryan could get there. These were my favorite find, these dolls ended up costing just the same as the ones I had purchased at Walmart. The girls, especially Bristyn, play with them all the time.

new clothes from g&g that she kept trying to give back

build a bear clothes fromg&g

littlest pet shop daycare from g&g

diary of a wimpy kid from g&g- a tradition

We had a great drive in the car and made it down to Grandma Karla and Grandpa Gary's house in late afternoon. It was so fun to be there on Christmas day. We opened our presents and gave out our gifts. The snack/appetizer foods were laid out on the table just as always, and they were yummy just as always. That night we tried to go to the movies, meaning we drove about 30-45 min. to the theater and the show was sold out. Plan B- back to Grandma and Grandpa's to play games- it was so fun! The boy cousins played video games and the girl cousins watched a movie. We stayed up too late talking, playing and laughing- it was perfect!

nativity and keepsake ornaments with my picture on them- primary and girl scouts from mom & dad

very awesome vintage cookie jar filled with 150 $1 bills from mom & dad

guess who

wrote this!?!