Our festivities!

It's finally Christmas Eve and the kids can hardly wait. We went and saw The Tale of Despereaux  with Big Grandma and Gpa. (My parents) and our cousins. After that we spent the afternoon at grandmas making snowmen crafts and frosting cookies. All the kids opened one present on Christmas Eve which is always pjs. We headed home and looked in the sky to see if we could see Santa's sleigh. 

After they were snug in their beds dreaming of sugar plu

ms, Santa and his elf went to work. We had the toy room locked for a couple weeks because that is where we were "wrapping presents".  

We have a rather large playroom that the kids never played in. This is the playroom

BEFORE... 

 There wasn't anywhere to put your toys, the tv was 'interesting' and it just didn't flow. So Santa and his elf were determined to make it a room where we would all love to go. We actually got to bed at a decent hour because we were almost done with the room a few days before. 

Christmas morning I was certain this year my kids would wake up early. Nope! We finally woke them up at about 7:30, read the Christmas story from the bible, lined up at the top 

of the stairs, sang a 'fast' Christmas song and darted down. There weren't very many presents under the tree but the kids didn't seem to care. James got 2 games for a PS3 and he just said 'Oh, we're going to have to take these back for a Wii orGamecube cause I don't have a PS3".  Anna got Pixos which she just had to have that Santa's wallet was happy about!! And lil' ol' Emmy wanted a baby and a stroller. We opened all the presents under the tree and still the kids were happy. At this point Santa's Elf is wondering why she spent so much time redoing the toy room when the little tykes were happy with what they already had.  James finally asked where the stockings were. We looked around then out of no-where a letter from Santa dropped from the tree that told the kids to go into the toy-room. They opened the door and you could see a bright light and hear a choir of angels singing!!                             

Their eyes lit up and they haven't left the room since!  James (cough cough Jared) wanted a PS3.  Oddly enough all the kids (and adults) wanted a new tv. The old one had some discoloration, maybe some missing buttons and sometimes turned on when no one was in the room. So Santa took care of that. Well maybe I should say his elf who went to Best Buy, purchased everything, set up install appointments, called when no one showed up, got escorted out of Best Buy, but eventually saved Santa LOTS of money... but that's a another story! 

SO.. James was excited for the tv area, Anna got an art center which she and I love, and Emmy got a toy bench to 'hide' all her dolls! 

We then hopped in the car and headed to Little Grandma's. Jared and Brian made the traditional venison breakfast and after we fed our faces we read the Christmas story from the bible and opened presents. We went back to Big Grandmas, ate lunch, opened presents, and talked to Curtis (who gets home in July).  We had a GREAT Christmas this year. We headed back home and spent the rest of the day in our new room and just enjoyed each other. I guess mission  'make a room we all love and have fun together'... accomplished!