Christmas Day 2011

Christmas for us this year was both great and wonderful but also a little crazy and sickness-filled. We had an amazing day, the kids were so fun and were taken up by the magic of the day. At the same time, poor little Jasers was a little miserable off and on throughout the day...we later found out that he had pneumonia...no wonder he was so sad....

The tree is filled to capacity with gifts, I guess we're ready to get this party started...

The traditional (at least for my family) picture on the stairs on Christmas morning...the kids are so patient with me :D We can't go see what Santa brought until we take this shot first.
Sweet little Jason, he's such a trooper, snuggling with Steve's leg
We didn't finish the Nativity Calendar up on Christmas Eve like we were supposed to so we snuck it in on Christmas morning. It was actually nice that way though because we were able to talk about Jesus' birth before we got to the Santa and presents stuff...a good start for Christmas.

Baby Jesus has arrived...now it's really Christmas! My mom made one of these calendars when we were little and every Christmas we would all look forward to putting up a little piece of it every night. My sisters and I would count it out and fight over who would be the lucky one to put on Baby Jesus each year. I loved this tradition so much that A LOT of years ago I started making one with my mom, well, this year I finally got around to finishing it. It was my kids' favorite part of every day. Before bed each night we'd all sit on the stairs and read a scripture about Jesus' birth that related to whichever piece we were putting up that night. It really helped the kids and us focus on the real reason we celebrate Christmas...it made such a difference in our home this year!
Jas checking out one of his new toys...it didn't take him too long this year to figure out the whole opening presents thing. Last year he wasn't interested at all. It was fun to watch him jump from gift to gift with excitement!
All Abi wanted for Christmas was this silly hair Lalaloopsy...so exciting!
Emma had been telling us all month that she wanted a Fijit for Christmas (have you seen those things, they're funny!). Well, at the last minute (after all the shopping was done) she decided that what she really wanted was a Barbie. Lucky for us cousin Zach was on top of things and had already sent Emma this great Barbie for Christmas, he saved the day! (as a side note, she got the Fijit from Steve and me and she loves that one too.)
The girls in their new Christmas dresses and all ready to go to church. Steve took the girls while I stayed home with the sick-o. Aren't they so cute!?!
Emma and all her loot...she must have been a really good girl this year. She's one lucky little lady.
Abi too, she got everything she wanted and a few surprises that she didn't even know she wanted :D
Jason made quite the haul too. I think the Cars2 Race Track is the favorite of his.
We also decided to surprise the kids with this Lego table. They LOVE playing with Legos but they always end up scattered all over the place. This has been a great solution and they have spent lots of hours playing together at this thing. (See the airplane on Abi's head? She built that by herself!) Jason was miserable by this point as you can see-his fever had kicked back in and he started to get a bad cough... :(
All in all, it was a really great day. The kids were so great and so fun to watch enjoying their new treasures. Thank you everyone who was so generous and sent us gifts, we love them all! Now we just need to figure out where to put everything and then we'll be finished...until next year!