Christmas Festivities

 I swear Christmas just gets better and better every year. It is just so enjoyable and relaxing and fun and exciting and I love it. I never want the day to end. 

We started out Christmas Eve at my parents with a delicious dinner. We had a little program and let the kids do the nativity. Since this is my side of the family's "Christmas" we also exchanged gifts. It was just the beginning of the absolute magical excitement that fills the air at Christmas time.

The kids were all so excite about their gifts from their grandparents.

Andy and I snuck our kids downstairs to give them their Christmas jammies and so they could change.

We said goodnight to everybody and headed home. We checked out Nordic Santa Tracker while we were driving home to see where Santa was. He was already in the states, so we figured we better hurry to bed!

Once there we put out milk and cookies for Santa Claus, and all jumped around to get our excitement and wiggles out so we could go to sleep.

This is the first year that our kids had trouble sleeping because of excitement. While Andy and I were downstairs watching a movie we heard more than one kid sneak out of bed to see if Santa had come yet. We just kept giggling together and we would both readily admit that we were just as excited. 

Also, something fun that doesn't always happen is that we had a big snowstorm! It was so fun to wake up to a beautiful white Christmas.

Santa did finally make it to our house! He must have taken so long because he brought three bikes along with him. Andy, Daphne, and Baron all got new bikes from Santa Claus.

When we heard the kids around 6:30 AM, we snuck out of our room and ran into their rooms shrieking and jumping around and yelling that it was Christmas. They were so surprised they just stared at us. Then they finally realized that they could get up and head downstairs :)

Stockings first! My favorite, always.

New bikes! I still need to teach Baron to ride his...

Andy's giant-sized bike

 

We opened our gifts from Santa and he was so good to us. Magnus got a Leap Pad.

Jonah received his longed for Skylanders Swap Force

And Laylah got a karaoke machine with a few cd's.

I got a new laptop. Very exciting. Santa wants me to succeed in school!

Stocking stuff. My very favorite!

My 4 cute boys, all checking out the electronics first thing.

 Laylah was so excited to give me and Andy our gift. She bought it all by herself.

 She had broken our old waffle iron a few weeks before and she felt bad, so she bought us a new one!

 Cute Sadie, giving me some Christmas kisses.

 Just enjoying our morning, playing with our new toys! We had a sing-off in the middle of gift giving.

Andy and I gave all of the kids a new sleeping bag. They had tiny, old ones. These are legit, super warm bags. Now we have no excuses to not go camping, so the kids say. What have I done?!

The sibling gift exchange was my favorite. They all kept hugging each other and they were so grateful to each other. It's the best witnessing these things as a parent, am I right??

 The kids got Andy a Roku. Pretty fun :)

And here is Layah forcing Sadie into her new Christmas sweater. Haha!

Fun, new stuff!

I got Andy a canvas of our kids. He loved it, but joked it was really a gift for me. He knows me well...

After the last gift was unwrapped, all of the kids slowly dispersed to watch new movies, play with new video games and toys, or just eat a bunch of treats from their stocking.... I made our delicious, traditional brunch. Mag helped me with the eggs.

YUM!

Andy and I went and watched a movie afterwards and both fell asleep. Best Christmas nap ever.

When our movie was over, we all quickly got dressed in our new duds and headed to the theater to see Big Hero 6. It was the cutest, but actually kind of sad. We all loved it. 

After the movie, we headed over to Andy's parent's house where we had Christmas dinner (kind of a random assortment of Asian food, and a roast + potatoes for people who don't like Asian food...)

For some reason, I always stop taking photos when we arrive at this point in the day. I guess maybe I am really tired by now. But we had a fun time exchanging gifts. Kids got traditional jammies made by grandma, of course.

Cousin jammie photo (missing Jenny's kids):

We kind of just hung out the rest of the night while the kids played and watched movies. It was a quiet, perfect end to a pretty perfect day.

 I love how it just gets better and better every year.

Merry Christmas...