Christmas At Home 2014

Since we had never done our own Christmas morning festivities I wasn't sure what to expect. Our children usually wake up early pretty consistently so I was expecting to be dragged out of bed at 6:00 am or earlier. They surprised me by sleeping in until 7:30am and coming in our room to say Merry Christmas.

The night before had been a little rough getting the kids in bed (whining and fighting). Steve and I weren't too excited about parading downstairs and showering our children with gifts that we had thoughtfully put together for them without first making sure we focused on what this holiday was all about. So that morning we all sat on our bed and had a little devotional with a story, some scriptures, and testimony.

m&m's

stencils

tape, tape, tape

(she calls them slices of tape in the video below)

And everything was fine for about five minutes until Kylee had a little meltdown. She initially got mad when she realized that Steve was videoing her instead of just taking pictures.

Here is the video...

I tried to keep Liv from eating everyone else's m&m's from their stocking. As Kylee would say, Liv 'chugged' her candy and then tried to snatch Cody's. Well, as usual, Liv was too sneaky for me. While I was in the kitchen getting the sticky buns ready for breakfast she was helping herself to mom and dad's stocking (which we hadn't emptied yet because of our little interruption). We had gum and tic-tacs in addition to our m&m's so she had found the jackpot.

Liv got a little doctor kit from Grandma Tammy and Grandpa Airplane. She immediately started nursing all of Mercy Watson's ailments.

Grandpa Airplane and Grandma Tammy woke up mighty early on the west coast to get in on the action. It was fun to have them be a part of the fun.

Cody was super excited to get another Lego X-Box game.

We gave the kids the Mercy Watson series, but we wrapped them all in different boxes. Once Liv had unwrapped a few of the boxes she lost interest in opening more presents. She just wanted to hold the books. Steve handed her a gift to unwrap and she said, "no, thanks," with her hands full of books. Then Steve told her that the box had more Mercy Watson books in it and then she promptly set her books down while she opened the gift.

What more do you need than all 6 Mercy Watson books and Mercy Watson herself?

Kylee got a rubberband loom for making bracelets. She's already made some pretty cool stuff. She also got the watch that she is wearing in the picture from Grandpa Airplane and Grandma Tammy. She loves that it has a stop watch feature so she can time her wall sits.

The other day we were eating stir fry for dinner (which the girls don't like). Kylee told me she was going to time us to see how long it took us to finish our dinner. I thought she meant she was timing all of us but then she told me that she wasn't timing herself or Olivia. I don't think either one of them ate a single bite of that dinner and I think that was her plan all along.

Sara drew Steve's name this year and gave him a cool Captain America t-shirt. Kylee took the picture. I think she forgot to get the shirt in there.

I love the Mercy Watson books and so does everyone else in our family.

Jeans!*

Steve and I scored some awesome jeans this year and what's almost better than the jeans themselves is that I successfully kept Steve from opening his jeans and wearing them before Christmas. I had to wrap his jeans in the same box with mine and only put my name on the outside, but it worked. It was a Christmas miracle.

*prices shown do not reflect the amount paid!

Maybe I'll actually have to buy a bundt pan to make sticky buns next year. :)

Another attempt at photographing the new shirt...almost there.

Steve was set on trying his hand at making tamales for our Christmas dinner and it was so delicious! 

When he cooks you can bet it's going to be Mexican food and we are never disappointed.

These family pictures below were taken to document our first traditional Christmas tamale dinner (with many more to come hopefully) and they both crack me up because Livy is giving us a look like we are complete lunatics.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!