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The last few years we've been having Christmas Eve/Christmas morning at home, and then throwing all our overly excited kids into the van for a four hour drive to Idaho. It sounds like it might get a little crazy from the sugar and present high they are on, but they're actually pretty good. They are so excited about seeing cousins that they are blissful--mostly. And it also helps that they went to sleep late, got up early (not too early this year, they slept in until about 7:30--yay!) and they are tired so half of them are asleep before Bluffdale. But here's some pictures from our Christmas morning:
I love Joseph's expressions, this was a big glow stick, he was so happy. Do you think we'll get the same reaction from dollar store toys when he's a teenager?
Seth examining his stuff. He was pretty excited about the cars.
Lissy got a lot of craft stuff, she loves that. I have to insert the story about her Christmas pajamas here, because I forgot to on the last post. Every year the kids get pajamas on Christmas Eve, so I spend the year looking out for ones that they will like that aren't expensive. I couldn't find any for Felicity until one day I went into Costco, and they had the perfect pjs for her: They were pink and purple and blue with a sparkly horse printed on the shirt and sparkly rainbow colored horse and heart outlines on the soft pants. Perfect...except the sizes were all too small. So I called in the reinforcements: my sisters. They both live near different Costco's and checked them out for me, and hurray, Nicki found one in Felicity's size. And she agreed that they were perfect for our horse (and sparkle and rainbow) loving girl, and Felicity did love them when she opened them up. So thank you Nicki and Melissa for hunting those out for me!
We picked up some of those fake cans that you open up and a snake jumps out. Caleb LOVED it, he thought it was the greatest thing ever and kept offering it to people.
And our girly-girl Abigail was very excited about her new football.
The boys all got space shuttles and stations that they could play with together. It's hard getting kids to look at the camera when there's so much going on!
Seth's big gift was a toy boat from Veggie Tales. It had the people (vegetables?) from The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (a fav movie for the kids, and song, too) and from Jonah. He sat right down to play and it distracted the other kids for awhile, too.
Felicity got roller skates for her big present. She'd been asking and asking, but when I got around to looking in a few stores, they were sold out in her size. So I gave up and got her a learning sewing machine at Hobby Lobby. Then I thought and thought about it...and I went Toys R' Us. Which I don't really recommend the week or so before Christmas, it's a little hectic. When I got to the section with roller skates, it was in complete shambles with open boxes and skates strewn everywhere, but not much of a selection, and I couldn't see anything that would work for her. I gave up, walked a few isles away, then came back and dove in. In the back behind Random Other Skates I found what I assume to have been the last purple skates in her size in the state. Or at least Utah County. And I took the sewing machine back. And Felicity glowed when she opened it up. Which made my Santa heart happy.
Talking about glowing, Joseph made another Happy Face when he opened his big present.
All three (yes, three) of my big boys got nerf guns. When I picked out the two for Caleb and Joseph, Farris looked at them and then told me, "If you get me a nerf gun, make sure it's a little bigger than theirs." So his has machine gun action and at different times, darts are flying everywhere with lots of giggling. We need to get more, Abigail likes to eat them. Uggh.
Felicity modeling her new skates.
Abby had to try the skates on, too.
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Then we ran around and threw things in the van and drove and drove and drove...
To grandma and Grandpa Newey's house that smelled a little like spray paint because they had just brought in Melissa and Nicki's new creation Snowman Pinata. We strung'em up and wacked him over and over and then all the cousins dove for candy. I have a video but I couldn't get it to upload, maybe later.
Abigail found a pair of sunglasses in the dress up box, she kept putting them on but whenever I went to take a picture she pulled them off to look at the camera.
Pandemonium during stocking time.
My mom has crocheted a tractor stocking for each of the grandkids, all
in different colors. She finished Abby's in time for Christmas this
year, so now she just has one more (little Elizabeth's) to do until
she's caught up. Her and grandpa also fill each of the stockings, plus
stockings for each of us adults, so there's quite a bit of stuff all
over. We also do a gift exchange, the kids have fun seeing what they
and their cousins got. This year we got lots of books, a science kit
for Caleb and a tent building kit for Joseph among other things. My
parents gave me a beautiful painting of the Logan Temple, where we were married. The kids are
under even stricter rules about throwing balls in the living room, I
don't want anyone to knock it off the wall.
Abby got two favorite gifts: A Peek-A-Boo sock monkey that grandma picked out and gold sparkly boots that that grandpa picked out. She loved both of these, even though the sock monkey scared her at first. She's not used to stuffed animals talking to her!
After a few days at G and G Neweys, we went over to Farris' family party. Not all the families were able to come but we had a lot of fun. Lots of presents and lots of laughter. Farris' family is so much fun, lots of jokes and teasing is flying around and usually lots of balled up paper and even other stuff! We usually get a few good card games going, too and end up staying up way too late. The memories are a little bitter sweet now, with sweet Savannah passing in January. One of our kids had her name and I wrote out the card on top of the present, and I forgot to put a "h" on the end of her name. I remember her standing in front of me with her little hands on her hips shaking her hand at me, telling me I had spelled her name wrong! We miss our sassy little Savannah!
Caleb got another Hero Factory, him and his cousin Tennessee immediately started putting them together and playing with them.
Joseph and his tiger airplane. Anything that he can use as a prop to make noise is good in his eyes.
Felicity got some more Littlest Pet Shop, she had it set up and was playing pretty quick.
I just loved this picture of little Shaylee, she found our camera case and decided to taste it. Isn't her big blue eyes adorable? Abby has two cousins within a few months of her, Shaylee and Darron, all three of them look so much alike (even Darron, the boy of the group), and they are all in about the same stages, it was fun comparing notes on what they are all into. Trouble, pretty much.
All in all we had a wonderful Christmas, full of blessings and family, lots of laughter and giving. A good reminder to pause and enjoy my blessings a lot more than I have.
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