Christmas Celebration with Grandma Cleys

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with Grandma Cleys.  We went to her house to exchange gifts. The kids love going to Grandma's house and immediately take over!

Josh wanted to play photographer.  He took all the photos of me and his siblings.

After a zillion pics, it was finally time to put on Santa hats and open gifts!

The kids were super excited for their presents.  They got scooters, glow cups, Barbies, building tracks, etc.  Then it was time to get in the ginormous bag and take pics.  Silly kids!

We went for dinner to Barnaby's to meet up with more family.  It was so great to see everyone and catch up.  It had been way too long!  Afterwards, we went back to Grandma's house and she made tons of food.  The kids got to play with cousin Kylie.  She is a tiny bit older and so much fun!  

All this partying wore them out and only Kylie, Brooke, and Jack stayed up!  The other two passed out on the couch!  We had such a nice time with family!

Christmas Day -Part 2

We headed over to my parents for their yearly Christmas party.  This year, many relatives were not in attendance because of going out of town or other relatives in town.

We always go early to exchange gifts.  The kids received some cool gifts which included: Playdoh, cameras, stuffed animals, remote control cars, etc.

We had a yummy dinner and chatted with relatives.  I was so happy that my other cousin and family joined us later.  The kids love playing with Maya!

We had a wonderful, and very busy, Christmas!  It went by way too quickly!

Christmas Morning- Part 1

Just like last year, I was the first to get up on Christmas morning.  I was too excited to sleep!  I crept downstairs around 6 am and the boys and Abby joined me shortly thereafter.  

They wanted so badly to wake up Brooke, but I held them off for as long as I could.  How?  By taking pics in front of the tree!

I finally let them get Chris and Brooke, and they dove into their stockings.

 Brooke was half asleep and didn't mind just watching!

The boys got the "grabber machine" or claw machine, that they so badly wanted from Santa.  I loved the look on their faces!

Brooke didn't want to open smaller gifts because she wanted just big gifts.  Abby got the peacock costume she asked for from Santa.  Of course, the kids wanted every single gift to be opened at that very moment.  And…each toy required 1,293,322 batteries to operate.

Christmas Eve

It's been a couple of years since we attended Christmas Eve at my Aunt Wanda's house.  This year we were able to go and were so excited to see everyone!

We all kept to my old tradition of not eating meat on this day.  It was much easier here because it was all fish/non meat foods.

The kids watched the movie Elf for the first time.  They loved it!  We also watched old home movies from when I was around 8 years old.  With my terrible memory, this was the greatest treat!

The kids were eager to open presents of course.  Aunt Caroline didn't disappoint ;)

Brooke got an awesome Hello Kitty kitchen. It was bigger than her!

Jack was super happy with his Lego sets!

Josh received Legos and couldn't wait to open them!

Abs received some Legos and bracelet making sets.  Perfect for my little crafter!

Jack wanted to go home as soon as possible because he thought the quicker he went to sleep, the quicker Santa would come. We even tried to show him the Santa tracker.  It didn't work.  Once again, they changed into pjs for the ride home.

We put out the cookies that were made earlier in the day and some milk for Santa.  The kids fell asleep in no time!