Christmas Day

Oh boy Christmas morning is so exciting. Luckily my big boys are still good sleepers. We told them they weren't allowed to come into our room if the sun wasn't up. They agreed to this. I actually woke up way earlier than them because I was so excited. They also know they are not allowed to go downstairs until we say it is time. Once they came into our room. I went downstairs to start the Christmas music, the YouTube log, and put our breakfast in the oven. I make sure the table is set and everything is ready for the boys. In the meantime Max gets all the kids in the bed and shows him some videos about Christ and the First Christmas. They are so excited when I tell them they can come down. I made a video of them coming down the stairs buts its all blurry so I'm not going to put it on here.

Our theme for gifts for our boys were inexpensive, "who cares if it breaks," and small. We don't have much room for any large toys and my boys are plenty creative with everything they already have so Santa left them these body boppers (I really don't know what they're called but they wear them and run into each other..) We knew they wouldn't last long, and if they did happen to last, they could become small enough to store. Other Santa and stocking items included punching balloons, slap bracelets, animal crackers, applesauce, a fruit, juice, socks, and some candy.

 According to my Christmas morning plan, (haha, maybe I'm a little too strict about this) We can see what Santa brought and check out the stockings while Breakfast is cooking, (usually some sort of already prepared breakfast casserole that I just needed to pop in the oven) Then we eat breakfast, clean that up, then we can pass out the gifts under the tree. It was always in this order when I grew up and I like it. Max got himself a torch, so he tried it out on our breakfast.

And I didn't take many photos of our gift unwrapping. Each of my boys got a book, a box of fun cereal, Charlie got a box of washi tape, a pedometer watch, a robot spider ( I scored for free from a neighbor) Miles got some magnet wands, a bike bell, and a robe, Edwin got a robe, underwear, and a ball and truck from his brothers. Grandpa Rob stopped by and brought some fun surprises for us all. And Nana Kay and Grandpa George had sent a fun package for the boys. I don't usually write out all the gifts but they were all so happy with such simple and relatively inexpensive gifts that I wanted to savor this time when they are so easy to please. One of our favorite parts was when Edwin opened his little truck from Miles. He lost all interest in opening any other gifts and drove the little truck around for a long time. Miles was proud because he had picked that out on his own.

 

Max and I were both able to surprise each other a bit even though some of the gifts we gave each other were from our Amazon Wish List. One of those surprises came after all the gifts were unwrapped, and the kids were happily playing. Max said, oh yeah, I have a gift in my car. And he brought in a large package which turned out to be for me and it was a set of Photography studio lights. I've been wanting to play around with the option of studio photography for awhile but hadn't put much research into it. So he did a lot of research for me and surprised me with this great set. So we rapidly cleaned up our tiny living room so I could set the lights up before I needed to put Edwin down for a nap.

And then I took some with my real camera

They were mostly being goofy and totally messing up the sheet, but here they are. 

Then Miles took some of Max and me, in all our (my) bedhead glory!

 He had a hard time getting our heads in the shot. But I like it! haha!

 I've since been practicing with the lights a ton to get better focus and avoid the dreaded glasses glare and even used them recently on a family photo shoot.

Max also gave me this Photography Crystal ball, I had never heard of such a thing but it's been fun to play around with.

 Anyway, we had some cereal for lunch, put Edwin down for a nap. Charlie and Max built his robot spider. Miles played with toys, I played with camera stuff. Then the boys got all suited up to play on the trampoline with their boppers. I was totally expecting them to get super frustrated at each other from constantly being knocked down (like the times we set up the kiddie pool and then they are constantly fighting because the other one is getting them wet?!?! Tell me I'm not the only one) anyway, it was all fun and games and laughter. No injuries, no whining, no fighting. It was a straight up Christmas Miracle!! Then we decided to load up in the car and drive the hour to my mom's house for Christmas Dinner.

We quite literally went over the river and through the woods

The boys and Max and I were spoiled once again by Grandma Sharolee and Grandpa Don.

We stayed late and had so much fun. 
The next day we celebrated with Max's side of the family. Max had some funny gift ideas for a couple of his uncles. a couple days earlier Max had gone to see Aquaman with his uncle and brother/cousin. His uncle mentioned he always wanted a trident. So Max decided to make him a trident out of a fork and then it turned into me photo shopping his uncles head on the aquaman's body (Is that the right title? I don't even know) So that happened

 Edwin was exhausted because it was his naptime and surprised us by falling asleep in Danika's arms.

For Max's Uncle Jay he had these two pictures we had taken at his property in central Oregon. One is a winter sunrise that Max took on his phone when he was hunting one year and the other is a summer sunset that I took.

Anyway,we enjoyed a great turkey dinner and Uncle Jay always spoils all the kids with Nerf Guns and firetruck toys. 

And that was how we celebrated and I'm realizing how worldly this is sounding. I get really excited about giving my family gifts and it was fun to spend time with family and have so much time with my little family in our home.  We are grateful for this extra special season to focus on Christ and Giving!