Christmas 2011

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  Ours was special for several reasons.  First, it was the first Christmas in a couple of years that my family came to spend Christmas here.  We have been blessed this year not to have to travel on any of the major holidays.  The second reason is that my sister brought her boyfriend with her - he is such a great guy and he made this Christmas even more fun!  My kids are going to be heartbroken when they leave tomorrow - they had so much fun with them.  Aren't they a cute couple?!?

We kicked off Christmas eve day with my husband and I being able to go on a run...together...with no baby joggers - it was as good as a date!  We ran a little longer than we normally would have just b/c it was so nice to be able to talk uninterrupted!  After the run, my mom, sister, and I took the big kids to the movies while the boys stayed at home and prepped some items for the following day.  We saw Tangled and it is a really cute movie!

After the movies, we can home and decorated cookies for Santa.  I had intended to do our big family meal that evening, but we had a couple of setbacks with the turkey (we did turkey instead of ham...SO glad we did - I'll share the recipe later - it was AWESOME!) so I decided we'd have the big meal on Christmas Day.

Christmas morning was a little chaotic since my early bird 4 yr old came downstairs before anyone else was awake and got into one of his presents.  We ended up opening presents in shifts.  We opened for a while and then when the kids got overwhelmed we took a break, then resumed opening, etc.  It worked out wonderfully and made the day very enjoyable and meltdown free.  As you can see from below, the kids were good this year so Santa came!

Below are a few of the pictures from Christmas morning.  I'll share more in the next few days.  My daughter was thrilled to get a Lalaloopsy doll from my parents.  My husband's parents got her a MSU cheerleader dress which she liked some that day, but since it was one of the last that she opened was not nearly as excited about it as she was today when she "re-discovered" it.  She can't wait to wear it and her big new matching hair bow!  She also loved her Barbie Car from her Aunt L (her baby brother did too, and several fights ensued as a result!) and her hair bows & interactive books from Aunt D.  She also got several movies and some play makeup, and a princess purse.  My little athletic girly girl was thrilled with her bike from Santa (she took to it like a pro!) and all the dolls, princess things, and girly items she got for Christmas.  Thank you so much grandparents, aunts, and of course, Santa!