Going, going, GONE......

Well, we finally made it through Christmas...all the build up and then BOOM......its over, just like that. It starts Christmas Eve for us. First we went to Uncle Nate and Aunt Alisa's house for lunch and gift exchanging. We had pizza and treats and then exchanged gifts. The kids had a blast....any chance to be the center of attention. As you can see, they come by their goofiness naturally. Nathan (my brother) is clearly demonstrating our families' crazy gene! We had a great time!

That evening we continued our Christmas Eve tradition of making cookies for Santa. I decided to make them from scratch this time which was time consuming but fun. The kids enjoyed decorating their own and Im sure Santa enjoyed them..wink wink.

Next we opened our one Christmas Eve gift.....new PJ's. The kids actually love getting new jammies and were looking forward to putting them on.

This was a first for us this year in a lot of things. Number one was the fact that my 2 sons seemed to finally catch on that Christmas is really hard to wait for. This is the first year that they consistentely whined about Christmas coming too slow. I can remember that it was torture for me as a child also.....funny how when you are an adult, Christmas comes WAY too fast. The 2nd new thing for us was that our kids actually got up before us this Christmas. In the past we have had to wake them up...usually aroun 9am! Can you believe that? Finally, they woke up first and came to get us to open presents (at 7:30). Im guessing that in the future that time will get earlier and earlier each year.

Addison was also very excited but she only had the attention span for one toy at a time and was getting quite irritated at everyone who tried to get her to open something else. She even kicked one present away from her because she wasnt ready to open it yet. Still she is very happy with all of her gifts but especially loves her cabbage patch doll which she carries everywhere and feeds and kisses constantly. She is such a little girl and I LOVE it. We have all had a chance to play the Wii that we got Alec. I wanted to see what all the hype was for. All I can say is that we will probably own one ourselves very soon. It is a lot of fun and I have only played one game so far... bowling. It is interactive and amazingly accurate. Very cool technology. Oh did I mention it snowed about 6 inches on Christmas Eve! I love it when it does that.....makes it a perfect Christmas.

So tonight we tried to go see the lights on temple square despite the 17 degree temperature reading. Not a great idea. It was beautiful but after about 10 minutes we could no longer feel our noses or toes. We headed home and had some hot chocolate to thaw us out. Now we are all settling down for the night and are thankful for having such a wonderful Christmas. Thanks to everyone who sent cards and well wishes and for the gifts that we received from everyone. You are all so generous and we thank you and love you. On to a new year!