Christmas Time!!!

Christmas at our house was so much fun this year! We were kind of excited to stay home for the first time in a long time and spend Christmas in our own little house together with our little family. We started off Christmas Eve with our family tradition of having Chinese Take out. This was always our tradition growing up and it has continued every year since. After dinner we helped the kids decorate sugar cookies to leave for Santa that evening. Our friends the Wright's brought us that cute Santa plate earlier in the evening!

While decorating the cookies, we heard the sound of sleigh bells outside. The kids went to the door and found that Santa had left them a few presents. They each got their Christmas pajamas, an ornament, and a new Christmas book! Hayden of course noticed right away that Santa got his P.J.'s from the GAP!

After the kids went to bed, Andy and I had a pretty relaxing night and were looking forward to Hayden running into our room early in the morning to tell us that Santa had come. Well, it didn't exactly happen that way... We were up by 8 and we hear nothing from either of the kids. Finally at about 8:45 we decided to make a lot of noise and open Hayden's door, well, that didn't work so Andy finally woke him up and said that Santa had come. Hayden asked if he was still here and Dad said no, Hayden followed by asking, "Did he leave me some presents?" Andy said let's go see. Hayden went straight to the tree in the family room and somehow didn't notice the bike right in front of the tree until we pointed it out to him, he was so excited! After a few minute,s he went and woke Brynley up, the first thing she saw was her new kitchen and she loved it!

Both Hayden and Brynley loved opening presents, some highlights included Hayden's guitar, BumbleBee Transformer, Planet Heroes Rocket ship, V Tech V-Smile and many more. Brynley was most excited for all of the dishes for her kitchen, Littlest Petshop stuff, and Play dough set. Some of Andy's gifts included an I Pod docking station, a tie, a few DVD's, a book, and a shower clock radio. He managed to spoil me again this year with a Prenatal Massage, some amazing perfume, Oprah's Fav. measuring cups and spoons, and a gorgeous blue Topaz and white gold ring.

After opening presents, it is always our family's tradition to have a big Brunch, so being that we were the only family in town, we invited our good friends Maddy and Dustin over. Dustin made the best Breakfast burritos, a tradition in his family which we may have to continue in our family. The kids all had a great time playing with all of the new toys while the adults got to relax and hang out a bit. The morning culminated with two frustrated adult men, trying to turn the Bumblebee transformer back into a car. After about 2 hours, Andy gave up and so I gave it a try, eventually, I got it mostly back into the car shape after forcing a few pieces in ways that maybe they shouldn't have gone! Needless to say, no matter how many times Hayden has asked since, we have not turned it back into a robot! The sad thing is, this was the only thing he said he wanted for Christmas and it doesn't even work right. Oh well, he spent the rest of the day riding his bike from the Laundry room to the Kitchen and back again. I was a little worried about him being able to peddle but he got it right away and has been unstoppable ever since!

We had so much fun spending Christmas here in Arizona, we missed our family in Oregon and Utah but realized that it really is a special experience to spend the day at our own house, we will definitely be doing that more often!