Merry Christmas?!

I know this posting is a little untimely since Christmas has come and gone. However, I have several pictures from our holiday that I wanted to post to share. Since the boys spend Christmas Eve with us and Christmas Day at their mom's, we celebrate our traditional Christmas morning on Christmas Eve each year. This was our first Christmas in our new house and as husband and wife, so it was definitely a special year for many reasons.

Wake up! It's time to see if Santa came!

But first, we enjoyed a yummy (but certainly not healthy) breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls! Having homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning has been one of my family's tradition for years. I wanted to continue this tradition with Scot and the boys. This was the second year I have made these on my own, and I must say that they were a success! I think the guys agreed since they seemed to gobble them up pretty quickly. Maybe they were just anxious to open their presents, though?

"Are all of these for me? See, I told you I wasn't a bad dog!"

"Wait- I think I just found mine!"

Notice the candy cane shaped bone hanging out of Harli's stocking. She became fixated on it and just sat there whimpering.

"Oh, my gosh, Oh, my gosh...this is not a drill."

I loved this picture because if you look closely you can see her little tongue sticking out in anticipation of her treats to come.

"Decisions, decisions!"

We layed out her presents and made her sit and wait to choose one. She was just shaking with excitement.




And the winner was... her new bone! She is an addict for these things, and didn't hestitate to grab it and run. We didn't see much of her for the rest of the morning as we opened our presents (which was why we opened her presents first!)





Don't worry. Santa Paws didn't forget about the cats. They received a new feather stick, and, as you can see here, it was a big hit with Allie. (Sammy doesn't come out much when the boys are here, so he decided to wait to play with his gift.)



After we finished with the silliness of the animals' presents, we moved on to the Main Event. The boys started by opening their stockings.

Here they are posing with their Stewart's Cream Sodas. This is another family tradition of Scot's.

Another tradition that my family has always had was that everyone got a new Christmas ornament each year. Even on the years that I wasn't at my dad's house for Christmas, they would still get me an ornament. When I became an "adult" and got my own place, I acquired all of my past ornaments- back to the year I was born. Hanging all of them on the tree is one of my favorite parts of Christmas- each ornament is labeled with the year it was from. This is another tradition that I want to continue with my family. Here are Matt and Andy finding a place to hang their new ornaments for the year. Andy got a snowman wearing Tampa Bay Buccanneers gear (his favorite team) and Matt got a classic Corvette (so he could say he got a car for Christmas.)

Scot with his new Hawaii WAC Championship T-shirt, courtesy of my brother and his family who live in Hawaii.

My dad had sent gift cards for the boys. Scot and I bought some of those gift card holders that look like stuffed animals. These had the velcro pockets in them so you can't really see the gift card unless you're really looking for them. We told them that they had gifts on the tree, but they had to find them. They finally found them, but were a little confused- thinking that my dad had sent them stuffed animals. Matt saw the pocket and thought it was a puppet! He put his hand in it and then he goes, "Oh!" They quickly discovered the gift cards, and I think they were quite happy to see that was their gift and not puppets. Not that they wouldn't have been appreciative of puppets, but I think Best Buy gift cards are a little more on target for 13 and 15 year olds. ;)

Matt's big gift was a new photo printer for his camera. (He recently spent an ungodly amount of money- his own money- but still a lot of money for a fancy new digital camera.) So we thought he would get good use out of a portable printer that he can hook his camera directly to without the need of a computer to print his own photos. It's pretty slick and he seemed to enjoy it.

Andy's main gift was Guitar Hero III. He has been talking about this game non-stop and was pretty stoked to get it. (I must admit that I've tried my hands at it a couple of times when he hasn't been here.) It's a neat game and I can see why it can become addicting.

After our Christmas (Eve) morning, we headed down to Scot's mom's house in Springfield, IL. When it comes to opening presents, Scot's mom, Michele, is as bad as a little kid. So it is always funny to see her at Christmas time. When my family has gotten together in the past, we have always had our meal, relaxed, and then opened presents. Not when you go to Michele's house! If she had it her way, we would be opening presents before we even get our coats off! It's kind of fun to torture her because of this. We wrapped all of her presents this year in paper that read, "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL DECEMBER 25TH," knowing full well that we would be there on the 24th. As you can probably guess, she didn't let that stop her one bit.

I liked this picture because of the confused look on Matt's face as he was trying to figure out what his gift might be. Michele is an absolute whiz at scrap-booking and card making. She is very talented and creative at this (of which I am completely jealous.) She made the boys some cool calendars- each month having pictures of them from different events over the past year.

Whatcha got Scot?

Hmmm...a drill doctor! That will come in handy with our basement projects that we have planned!

Harli helps her mommy open her gifts. "Are there any more bones in there?"

Andy opens his Terranator remote control car- it's supposed to go over any type of terrain. A 13 year-old's dream.

Matt with his aforementioned fancy camera.

"Any more presents to open?"

After our festivities on Christmas Eve, Michele and Rob graciously drove the boys back to Peoria to their mom's house so Scot and I could continue our journey onto Missouri. We got to my mom's house late on Christmas Eve, and had our family celebration on Christmas Day. I didn't take as many pictures at my mom's house as I thought I had, which was kind of disappointing. I think this was party due to the fact that I was in a near coma after the meal my mom cooked, including her nearly world famous turkey and dumplings. I love Christmas, but thank God it only comes once a year or else I would be twice my size!

Here is a picture of my mom opening her gift from Harli. In case you can't read it, it says, "Min Pin Grandma."

Yay! A new drill! This was put to good use on Scot's New Year's Day project (see previous post.)

Once again, we had a very blessed and fortunate Christmas with our families. The only thing I would have wished differently would have been to be able to see all of our family during the Christmas season. But as my family is so spread out geographically, this just isn't a possibility. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and we hope to see everyone again soon!