Christmas 2011

Christmas Eve this year was fun because we went caroling with Joe's side of the family to all of his parents friends.  Unfortunately Lynn wasn't able to be home to go with us which was a bummer, he was still in North Dakota working.  Before we left we gave Dea her present which everyone chipped in on.  A bosch mixer which she was so happy to get.  My pictures that (Joe took) turned out blurry, but were from my phone anyway.  For caroling we sang Jesus once was a little child, Mary;s lullaby and Christmas bells.  Dea bought these really cute wood handled bells that we all had that we shook while we sung the Christmas bells song and then as we left we sang We wish you a Merry Christmas.  We got home a little late and put the kids all together on the floor in the boys room and tucked them in. We heard Santa's bells and even heard him say Ho, Ho, Ho.  Macy said she heard him on top of the roof too.:)  I heard Kaden say, "who is that, is that Brady"?  Macy said "no that's Santa Claus hurry lay down" almost as if they'd be in trouble if he knew they heard him.  It was so cute!  Christmas is such a fun holiday and I just love seeing the kids faces when they wake up.  I thought for sure we would have to wake them up kinda early so we could at least do a few presents before we had to go to church at 10 a.m., but they were up at about 6:40.  I think someone had to go to the bathroom so that kinda woke them all up.  I went out to see what they were doing and they were all ready to get back in bed I think thinking that since it was still dark out they weren't allowed to get up.  I almost tried that, but then figured might as well get going so we wouldn't be rushed.  Good thing we did because we finished just in time to get ready and be to church on time.  Macy said her favorite things were her big house she got to color and her T-rex and her stuffed monkey.  Brady's was his cars 2 toys and Kaden was pretty much in awe of it all really.  He had fun with his 2 motorcycles that went really fast of this thing you attached them to.  I slowly gathered things they didn't seem that thrilled with and made a "return" pile which is always nice:)  Poor Brady had his teeth worked on 2 days before and was feeling pretty miserable first thing that morning and really didn't want to even get up, but as the morning went on he got more excited.  I felt so bad for him that he wasn't feeling good.  After church we went down to my family and did our annual Christmas tradition of dinner and a program. Brady and Macy both played a piano song and I found this really cute idea on pinterest of comparing Jesus to Santa and they had to figure out who I was talking about and then I made an ornament for everyone.  We also did a family gift exchange of a family night theme which was fun to see what everyone came up with.  It was a great Christmas!