Fitz's Our Favorite!

Mark was off all week so we enjoyed lots of family time. We saw many movies, ate out and played all our new Christmas games! We headed down to Fitz's one day and the girls all enjoyed Root Beer Floats. YUM! (Sawyer was with a friend at Incredible Pizza, not being ignored for pictures, for the record!)

Christmas #4

And the last of the Christmas parties! Dinner with my parents and brother. We all survived with smiles! Not survived dinner w/ my parents, I mean the entire week of Christmas! Well maybe my dad is not smiling. Blame it on the Chinese food we had for dinner, it made us all sleepy!

Christmas #3

Sweet Baby Leighton with her Uncle Brett. Isn't she beautiful? And he is handsome to of course!
We made the men play the left right game for their gifts. I know they loved it. And if they did not, does not matter because it made us ladies all laugh!

My grandpa

Grandpa with all of his great grandkids. Notice anything about this picture? Like the fact that there is just one boy? Poor Sawyer, girls girls everywhere! ;-)

Christmas night was spent with my moms sister and family celebrating with my Grandpa. Highlight of the evening was Grammy running upstairs every few minutes to wrap a present she forgot about. hehe!

Christmas Morning

It was a very Merry Christmas Morning at our house! Nothing more fun than watching 5 kids tear into gifts! Actually, the older ones wait and watch the little ones. Mavery tore through the fastest, we barely got a picture of her at all! Last year she was just home so she was very overwhelmed, this year she is all about the presents! Santa goes overboard here, there is no doubt. Rumor has it his (HER) love language might be gifts. Hmmmm... Some fun things on their gifts this year.

• Malaine sat on Santas lap the week before Christmas. I asked her what she asked Santa for. "Kirsten the American Girl doll that is going away and I just know he is going to bring her for me and I can't wait!" Amazingly Mommy had NO IDEA that she wanted her. Or that she was SOLD OUT in the store. Thankfully that Santa is smart and was able to deliver because I could see her looking around for that doll as soon as she walked out! and she loves her.
  
• Makenna, also a week before Christmas, saw some clear converse tennis shoes she wanted. Up to this point she had asked for nothing except $$ because she is saving to travel to China. (she wants to go and work in an orphanage, no we are not adopting again!) So in the days before Christmas Santa was busy! As you can see from the pictures she did not expect Santa to deliver those shoes! Her 2nd favorite was a package of socks that did not have matches in her favorite prints and colors.
  
• Sage & Maverys favorite was their motorcylces. Sage got a scooter her size because she insists on riding Malaines around. Which is to big for her. She was excited for about 20 seconds till she realized that a 3 wheel scooter does not go as fast as a 2 wheel scooter. She quickly passed it on to Mavery telling us it is WAY to slow for her. I have to get this kid on video riding this to big scooter. She is FAST! As I said before, Mavery tore through her presents, tossing each aside quickly. Sage took her time, studies each gift, gets excited over each thing. They are so different.
• Sawyer was thrilled with his as you can tell. Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics was his only wish along with legos of course. Though he insisted Dad had to have a certain game for his Christmas Gift (playstation 3) which I am certain was as much for Sawyer as for dad! How do I expect my son would not be into electronics when their almost(not quite but getting closer!) 40 year old father is still getting new game systems for himself?? ;-)
  

I love LOVE the magic of Christmas morning. Watching my kids faces as they open things, priceless. I have no doubt that my children know what the true meaning of Christmas is all about. And I believe that God finds joy in the delight going on in our house Christmas morning!

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

We have made it a tradition to let the kids sleep on our floor on Christmas Eve. We mainly started this because of the way our house is set up. The kids are on one side of the living room, us on the other. We like to watch their faces as they come out to see what Santa left, so this was the solution. Plus the fact they think it is GREAT fun! We decided to let the little girls join in on the slumber party this year. That was not so much fun. Mavery was over tired so we were reminded of the days right after she came home. Night terrors, screaming out, thrashing all over. Not a good thing with a room full of kids! Then at one point when she was quiet, Sage woke up and went tearing through the room in the dark, heading out the door. Stepping on Maverys head in the process! Guess she decided she might catch Santa, not sure! At that point we let Sage & Mavery both sleep with us. (HA! sleep?) Then at 430 Sawyer could take it no more and continued to ask every 15 minutes if we could get up yet. Oh the joy of Christmas morning! I am reminded of why Christmas Day is my very favorite nap day of the year!

Christmas #2

We started our Christmas Eve morning with breakfast at IHOP with Marks family. My kids love nothing more than eating breakfast out! Afterwards we came home and they opened their annual gift of new pj's. We have done this every year since Makenna was born. New jammies to wear to bed = fun morning pictures! (though I have to admit this year we did stretchy outfits instead of pjs.) Last count was that the little girls had 35 pairs of jammies in their drawer! Add that to the fact I can barely get my older kids out of pajamas, I decided a stretchy outfit could serve 2 purposes! Sleep in it, yet look like you are dressed during the day.

Mostly smiling, what a miracle! On our way to church for the Candlelight service. Candlelight & 2 4 year olds, always an interesting combination!
Afterwards we came back to our house with my dads brothers and family. We had birthday cake for Jesus! This year we did chocolate cake, which shows us and our sin, but filled them and covered them with white icing to show that Jesus was born to cover those sins. (Thanks Amy for the pic, I had to borrow from you blog, we did not get one!)

All the cousins together!

My dad's brother Ray with his kids. We sure miss my cousin Dawn and her family. Kids were thrilled to spend an evening playing with their cousins!My Uncle Joe. Missed a picture of him with my cousin!

My beautiful Makenna, looking way to old!

And my silly Sawyer, always around to make us smile!

Our family with my parents and my brother.

No one crying, yeah!

My mom's sister and her kids. Not one of my dads brothers, but in a round about sort of way related to that side to. It is complicated. ;-) And no party is complete w/ out them so we let them join us!

Makenna & I worked hard on putting together a nativity for the kids to act out and it turned out so cute! Makenna & Colby were Mary And Joseph holding Leighton as baby Jesus. Sawyer was a Shepherd & King Herrod. We had Adley as a little sheep. Dalayna, Jaylyn and Malaine were the 3 wise divas. Missing from the picture were the angels, Sage & Mavery. Who we all know are no angels! Sage cried through the play and I am not sure what happened to Mavery. hopefully I can add a video of it, the kids all did so good! More to come!

Christmas #1

We had FOUR days of Christmas parties with family. Which actually worked out best for Mavery. She can only handle so much "excitement", and we can only handle HER w/ so much excitement! Our first party was with Marks parents, his brother and family. And we actually used a camera this time!