Merry Christmas!!

Not quite the look I was going for, but it will do.  

Kids were up WAY before the allowed set time of 6:00.  But they were nice little kids and stayed upstairs.  Good for them too, because if you go downstairs before 6:00-- NO PRESENTS!  HA!  I'm kidding.

First things first- Stockings!!  My kids love this part for some reason :).  Makes me happy to watch them and their surprised little faces.

Santa has been keeping Pringles in business with our kids' stocking gifts.  They always get these sugar free "Ice" drinks too.. kinda cool.  I like that there is something to eat besides candy!

only getting four hours of sleep is okay when you get to wake up to this :)

Jack woke up a little later than everyone else, but he was up!  The Pringles fettish begins!

Kelly got Twizzlers :) her favorite!

After stockings comes Breakfast (we keep to a very strict routine) Creamed Eggs on Toast!  This is our Easter, Conferences, and Christmas meal :).  The kids love it!  Although, I did notice that they don't eat near as many seconds and thirds on Christmas morning- there's usally a pot of leftover egg mushy stuff, but ONLY on Christmas :)

Nate and the kids gave me my birthday gift--- MY WEDDING RING!!!!  Resized of course :).  I was SO happy!  I have felt completely naked without it these last couple months.  I'm glad it survived the whole ordeal (Nate said the jeweler first lost the ring, then broke it, then lost a bunch of the diamonds on it!!!!  CRAZY!!!  I'm so glad I wasn't in the loop for all of that mess, poor Nate- he knows how devastated I would be if I didn't have MY ring.)  Anyway- big points for him for surprising me with it!!  

And THEN it was time to open presents!! 

We always do Santa's gift first (good thing our kids are so schedule oriented, this kind of order could kill some kids)

Jack got a ball!!  The ball he kept saying he wanted!  The ball he asked Santa for!  The ball Santa TOLD HIM HE WOULD BRING when we talked to him the night before :).  So cute.  

This was the first thing he did with it :) so exciting!

And of course the second thing he did- show Daddy!!

We also have to open gifts in a special youngest to oldest order.

I missed Luke unwrapping, but then encouraged him to make sure that it was what it said on the box because there was NO WAY Santa would bring him THAT!!!

I was SO WRONG!!!  He did!!  Luke knew it!

Brad's was the tallest!  We were all curious to see what was inside.

The fishing pole he's wrote about in his letter to Santa!!!  And all the gear!  Wahoo!  This is thrilling!

You can tell by the look on Brad's face ;)  I'm kidding- caught the wrong moment in the picture :)  But he was excited!

Kelly had asked Santa to surprise her- I think she was surprised!  

I'll admit I pointed Santa in the right direction for this one.  He asked!

This little detective could tell what her gift was just by looking at the box!  Imagine that.  Cheater.  But she managed to pull off a surprised look when she opened it.  I think I was the one most surprised!

No more broken screens- say it with me-

No pictures of me opening my awesome laptop--- THANK YOU SANTA!!!

Nate opening the gift Charity gave him (Santa didn't bring him anything this year... must have been that one thing he did... HA! kidding!) early.  She made it- a Tie Rack! 

We always draw names for Christmas, just within our own family and this year we decided to do homemade gifts.  Turned out to be a pretty fun way to do it- I'm calling it a new tradition :)

Nate had Jack- he got him a jar of rocks.  Before you get all disappointed, this just happened to be the BEST gift anyone could give Jack!  He played with those rocks more than I've ever seen him play with anything (besides rocks- go figure)!  It was the perfect gift!  Nate put them in a jar and threw in some stickers that Jack could decorate the jar with... pretty fun Dad, I must say.

I had Erika, I made her a sleeping bag for her dolls :)  She loved it!

Kelly had Noah- she made him this awesome notebook and marker holder out of duct tape!  Noah LOVED it.

See!  Still playing with the rocks!

See how cool!

Jack had Luke, so Nate and I came up with this fun game- Nate built it.  It's Tic Tac Toe x 4 with Ping pong balls!!  Course we forgot to have Jack paint the balls like we were going to... oh well. Ya win some ya lose some.

He wasn't real sure of it until he tried playing it a few days later- we knew he'd like it :)

Erika had Bradley.  She and I made him the coolest Science Kit ever!  All the supplies and instructions included!  We can't wait for him to try the Soda Volcano :)

AWWWW!!!

The anticipation for Kelly's gift had been eating at her for days!

Luke had her, he made her some pretty awesome earrings and an earring holder.  These are really cute- I should have gotten a picture of them.  The Christmas Tree ones were their favorites.

Still going!

Bradley had Charity and found this cool pallet book shelf idea on Pinterest.  It was the perfect gift!  He was feeling so sick when it finally came time to make it that Nate did most of the work.  

Noah had me this year.  He pulled out all the stops and made me a VENDING MACHINE!!!  With my favorite candy inside!  What a cool kid.  He only had a little help from Kelly, but mostly made this all by himself!  What a sweetie.  I love it!  I already need to buy refills :)

This is where I stopped taking pictures.  I really am a creature of habit.  Same thing every year :).  Oh well.  

Here's how the rest of the day went:

Noah broke in his Snow cone maker- they've got BIG plans for the coming summer, I'll just tell ya that!

Poor Char Bear didn't get a break from this bug!!  She definitely hadn't gotten enough sleep though, so I'm glad she took advantage of this time.

Luke and his firstborn child.

Heidi and John showed up not too much later, then Grandpa Hatch and Dawn for just a few minutes- long enough to deliver the gift I'd accidentally left at his house, for Nate.  It was a meat grinder attachment for the Kitchenaid.  I think he was pleasantly surprised.  He had wanted them at Costco when they were having a crazy good deal, but since we were all sick, I "wasn't able to get it".  Darn it.  Grandpa aided this Christmas miracle :)  He went and got it for me that last day of the sale! 

Grandma Hatch and Simon came as Grandpa was leaving and showered us with gifts and played with our new toys with us.  

Later we had Nate's special smoked ham! And other stuff (see how it doesn't matter what else is there when there's smoked ham in the picture?) for dinner.  It was a pretty chaotic dinner, but we ate :).  

Then we watched Rocketman.  That movie is HILARIOUS.  But not near as funny without Brent there.  I had to take a video of the part where Fred Randall finds out he is the one chosen and send it to Brent and Sarah.  Still not quite the same.  I did enjoy hearing my kids laugh at all the parts when his suit is blowing up with gas :).  This was their first time watching it.  They didn't disappoint.

and then we had birthday cake!  Courtesy of Heidi.   

My cute cake!  Thanks Heidi!!!!

When you have a sister as gorgeous as mine, it's mandatory to post pictures like this of her every once in a while :).  Just keepin' it "real" Heidi :)

Jack and John became total buds by the end of the evening.  He was throwing him around and doing upsidedown and stuff, Jack was having so much fun, he cried when he had to leave... so cute!

Erika wanted to do some fun stuff with Jack too- this was way cute of her spinning him around... I needed a video, but if you scroll through the pictures really fast, maybe you'll get the same effect?

What a fun day!!  

Merry Christmas!!!