Christmas Day

After presents were done, it was time to get ready for Christmas dinner. We decided to have it at our house so the kids could all have some fun on our new play set. My dad took on the job of cutting the meat while we did the other final preparations for dinner/lunch.

 

I thought it was funny how many different pictures Jacob managed to get of Todd and Justin on their phones/tablet. They really didn’t do this ALL day. It just looks like they did.

The kids enjoyed the beautiful weather for the day, playing outside for the most part. 

 

Then when everyone was starving the food was ready. The kids got their own kids table, and the grown ups ate at the big table.

 

Dinner turned out pretty good. I actually enjoyed making it and it was way easier than I thought it would be for 17 people. We had both ham and turkey and all turned out well. Except the pies. Two pie crusts turned out horribly wrong and ruined the pudding pies. Luckily there were 3 other good pies. That’ll teach me to substitute. I made those pie crusts with butter at Thanksgiving and they were delicious. I tried using coconut oil instead this time and it did NOT work out. Lesson learned.

After dinner we moved into the front room for the cousin gift exchange and opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa. Eloise and her new umbrella:

Oh, there they are again:

and again:

They really didn't spend all day doing this. But it was the most noteworthy thing, I suppose, which is why we have so many pictures of them and their electronics.

Like I said, the kids spent most of their time outside playing.

Annie told me she loved playing in her castle.

Except for pie breaks. Ryan loved his pumpkin pie.

When the grownups got tired of supervising we let some movies do the supervising for a while.

Then we let Savannah do the supervising, with a little help from Rachel's new art supplies.

One of the most exciting gifts of the day was a new helicopter Jake got from my parents. Ryan (and Jacob) loved it. After spending all day watching it fly and asking to do it again and again, Ryan was happy to sit next to Jacob watching a Smarter Every Day YouTube video about how helicopters work. He was engrossed in the video. Until he heard the click of the camera.

It was an overall awesome Christmas day with lots of fun and family.

Christmas Morning

Surprisingly, though Rachel and Annie were super excited about Christmas, they were both able to sleep pretty well. They fell asleep right away, apparently knowing how important it is to be asleep when Santa comes. Rachel woke up once at 3am and was too excited to go back to sleep, so I had to go lay next to her in her bed and help her go back to sleep. But then, surprisingly, they both slept until 6:30, which is their normal you-can’t-get-out-of-bed-until-the-alarm-clock-light-turns-green time. Ryan was up before 6:00, so he and I were chilling downstairs waiting for the slow pokes to join us. 

When they finally did come down they went straight for the stockings. Ryan commandeered two light spinners from his sisters’ stockings (didn’t even notice that his own stocking had one for him, too), and wasn’t too concerned with anything else for a while. Not even the candy.

 

When Ryan finally did notice something it was his new basketball and hoop. He got right to work.

 

We had a hard time getting Ryan to stop playing with the previous toy to open a new toy every time. I guess that means each present was a success. He loves tractors, and was happy to get some of his very own.

 

Rachel asked Santa for art supplies, and he sure delivered. She got an art box to store everything in, and tons of paper, paints, crayons, markers, etc. She’s been taking pretty good care of all her stuff, so she must really like it.

Jacob gave me the world. Just what I’ve been wanting. Though I think I’ve seen him staring at the globe more than anyone in the family. 

 

I made Ryan a little Car Cozy that holds 6 matchbox cars and has a street to drive them on, and folds up nice and compact to take to church or to wherever. He was a big fan of the little cars. The girls had to open his big dump truck because he wouldn’t stop playing with the little cars, and hardly even noticed the dump truck when it was open. The boy is into cars. 

  

Annie asked Santa for My Little Ponies. She was overjoyed with the ponies she got.

A glimpse of the partially cleaned up Christmas morning chaos:

We somehow managed to lure the kids in with bacon to get something in their stomachs besides candy.

After breakfast Rachel opened the curtains to let in some light and saw something Santa had left outside for the whole family:

Annie saw it and surprised me with her first reaction being "Can I get dressed?" Apparently I've drilled it into her enough that she can't go outside to play until she's dressed. :)

 So they ran to get dressed. Notice Ryan laying happily on the floor enjoying his milk, so carefree.

 And then the fun really began.

Monkey bars were a MUST for this monkey. She immediately mastered these and began coming up with tricks to show off.

 We're loving this swing that Rachel or Annie can push while Ryan just is along for the ride. Less work on our part. :)

 The slide is super fast. We've ended up putting a bean bag chair at the bottom to catch the kids as they shoot off the end at high velocity.

 "Higher! Higher!"

Christmas morning was a definite success. Happy kids and happy parents all around.

Christmas preparations

Rachel’s school had a Pancakes with Santa dinner, so we took advantage of it for our one and only visit to Santa this year. Rachel made a Thank You/Merry Christmas card for Santa and asked him for art supplies and a new play set. Annie had grand plans to ask for a My Little Pony movie, and toys and Rainbow Dash (a pony), and more Little Pony stuff, but chickened out in the face of the big guy and just whispered “ponies” when he asked what she wanted. She wouldn’t sit on his lap, but was okay with Mrs. Claus holding her for a picture. 

Ryan and Jake stayed home to eat some GF waffles, so we missed out on getting a screaming picture with Santa. Though he probably would have been fine, anyway, as easygoing as he usually is.

Knowing we’d be having lots of visitors over the holidays we got a couple more fuzzy blankets for people to use. We made sure to test them out.

 

Last week Todd and Savannah came to stay at our house for a few days before moving over to my parents’ house for the rest of their Tucson visit. They brought their kids and their new dog, Shadow. The kids loved having a dog around for a few days. Ryan was especially interested in the crate. 

Ryan enjoyed telling Shadow to go to bed or go into her crate. She didn’t listen. He also enjoyed letting her into the house whenever we were cooking and wanted her to stay outside. 

We had fun having cousins staying with us for a few days, too. Eloise and Ryan (and all the kids, really) love this over-sized ornament that plays Christmas Carols and has a train go around a little house when you push the button. 

We went to the park for a picnic and some outside play time. At the dog park for large dogs the kids almost got mauled by some over-excited dogs. We moved over to the area for small dogs that was vacant and enjoyed a nice picnic while Shadow ran around by herself. She got to go play with the other dogs when we went to play on the playground equipment. The weather was perfect, or maybe a little hot for our Seattle cousins. It’s been a nice Tucson December.

After nap time we headed in to Grandma and Grandpa Knight’s house to play and eat dinner before we went to Winterhaven to see Christmas lights.

We all (minus Grandpa Knight) headed to Winterhaven to look at the Christmas lights that night. 

 Jacob's brother, Mark, was staying at our house that night before he flew out of Phoenix for a week with his family in Seattle, after which they'd all fly back to Phoenix and drive down for a week with us. So he got to enjoy the lights and the tired kid meltdowns with us.

All the houses go all out and are really impressive. One house had a bubble maker going that wasn't actually blowing bubbles for the most part, which made it look like snow was falling. The kids got a kick out of that one. 

Rachel got SO tired of walking. Luckily her Aunt Savannah was more accommodating than me saying suck it up, we're almost done. She threw Rachel on her back in her baby carrier for a while. The fact that I sent us down the wrong *short* road added to the exhaustion, but we dragged the kids through it and have some good memories from the night.

My kids don't handle going past their bedtimes too well. Annie conked out on the ride home. Rachel just had a melt down. For the whole half hour ride home.

 Monday and Tuesday Grandma and Grandpa Knight and Savannah took on the task of entertaining the kids while Justin, Todd, and I did some Christmas preparations at my house. They did Christmas cookies, decorations, and visits to the park in an effort to keep the kids happy. I'm sure it wore the adults out, but we sure were grateful for their help. There's no way we could have gotten everything ready without them.

 Peyton and Ryan are best buddies. They (almost) always get along so well. This is a very typical sight when they're together:

Grandpa made all the kids their own Christmas stars. Ryan broke his within 2 minutes. The others safeguarded theirs pretty well.

Christmas Eve dinner (our traditional 7 layer dip):

 We managed to pull off a pretty decent Nativity play on Christmas Eve. Ryan was a sheep (with a panda hat on, but hey, who noticed?) and Annie was Mary and VERY happy with her role. She sat there by baby Jesus reverently the whole time, plus 15 minutes or so before everyone else was even ready.

 Here's all the kids: Black Sheep Benjamin, Wise Man Peyton, Shepherd Eloise, Wise Man McKenzie, Mary (Annie), Angel Rachel, Sheep Ryan, and Joseph (Jared).

It was awesome having everyone together for Christmas Eve. Family is what it's all about. We all went our separate ways and had Christmas morning fun at our separate houses, before coming together for the rest of Christmas Day.