Christmas Day!

Since the kids are snoozing in preparation to head back to school and Seth is at the church, I guess I should keep trying to get caught up. Well, I should really be trying to get caught up around my house, but keeping the blog tidy and up to date is just as important, right?

Good, then let's venture on to Christmas morning...

We actually woke the kids up at 6:00 on Christmas morning, and this is what awaited them.

Alyssa was hard to shop for this year. She is passed the can I have that, can I have that phase and there wasn't really anything she wanted. She asked for one DS game and since they were only $10 on black Friday we got her two. She also said she might like the Lalaloopsy Silly Hair Doll. I knew she wouldn't play with it so we thought about an iPod, too much. We thought about a Kindle, but she shares mine, and if we both need it at the same time, one of us uses the Kindle app on my phone instead. So we thought about a Kindle fire, but everything that it can do, we can do on my phone, so eventually we just got her what she asked for, but I didn't feel like it was super exciting. She was happy though. She said she almost cried when she saw her pile. She even put out a sock for Victoria (her doll) and was happy to see that it was filled.

Alex asked for dang near EVERYTHING, but when he sat on Santa's lap he only said a batcar so we got him that and a few other small things so that we could spend the bulk of his allowance on taekwondo gear. The good thing about Alex is that he likes anything new. Anything! If the girls get a pink puppy in a Happy Meal and give it to him, he is thrilled. It doesn't matter who it is for, or what it is, if it is NEW, Alex wants it. You may notice that we did get Alex two DS games, so immediately he wondered where his DS was. Um, you didn't get one dude. We just got the games cause they were cheap and we were not buying a new DS when Alyssa uses hers about once a quarter. Thankfully Alyssa is not greedy about her stuff and she is fine with sharing it with him, with the understanding that it is still hers. Aren't we mean?

Chloe wanted nothing but the American Girl Bitty Twins, and a bunk bed with trundle (for her b-day) so that next year she can get another American Girl doll and they can all sleep on the bunk/trundle. I know I once ranted about American Girl but I have been happy to see how AG promotes good values, and encourages kids to be kids. The twins are the same price as one of the regular dolls, and you can customize them any way you like. They do not have to have the same hair and eye color or even the same skin color. I went to the website to order and gave Chloe the mouse and she clicked on the two she wanted. I placed the order right in front of her, and she had no idea what I was doing. So here they are, Seth and Julie. We have tried and tried to give her different name suggestions but she refuses to hear us. She said she thought about Alex and Alyssa, or Charlie and Kelly, or Peter and Metta (which she said she liked but wasn't sure if it was a name or not...but it was actually Seth's Grandma Johnson's name...how random that she came up with that, huh?). But in the end, she decided on Seth and Julie and will not budge.

I do not have pictures of everything else they got, or even a loot picture of them with all their goods, but here are a few more shots of the morning.

The envelopes on the tree contained Six Flags season passes. We loved that gift so much last year that we had to ask Grandma Susie to do it again.

Alex's number one gift request was actually the Penguin Submarine, so Santa was going to get it but Grandma beat him to it. He was so happy to see that he did get it after all.

The girls got cute matching boots from Grandpa Bob.

Grandma Ann jumped through hoops to get this Tae Kwon Do bag ordered and to get Mr. Pettis to deliver it in time for the big day. Alex LOVES it and we are so grateful because nothing TKD related comes cheap.

Alyssa opening her present from Chloe. Bath and Body works lip glosses, perfumes and lotions. Alyssa loves to wear smelly stuff so we actually got her a lot of B&BW stuff.

A viola for Victoria...so cute, it came with a stand and music as well.

If I told you how much these styrofoam sang jeol bongs (nunchuks in English) cost, you would smack me over the head with them. Thank goodness Alex was not offended that we used Christmas as a way to stock up on gear.

A Chorizo bobblehead for Chloe.

She ran to show me that she was winning the race on the box, because she is the Brat. Chorizo is just her favorite one to collect.

A subscription to AG mag from Grandma Ann. Alyssa never played with her doll until she started getting the mag from the library and it has so many cute ideas that she got hooked on her doll. She was thrilled to learn that she would be getting her very own copies in the mail.

While trying to get a pic of Chloe, Alex was flying by. The fact that he is blurred out and almost transparent in the picture should give you some idea of what it is like to live with this little whirlwind.

Seth and Julie in their new wagon.

Loving the roller skates from Grandpa Bill.

Waxie breakfast, of course.

Girlies in matching boots.

And even though we didn't make it to church, we did still wear our Sunday best.

I love Clay Matthews. I also love Aaron Rodgers, and Donald Driver, and Charles Woodson, and all of the Pack, really, but those are my top four. However, I recently saw a pic of Matthews shirtless and commented on how ripped he is. Since then, Seth calls him my boyfriend (well, him and John Steinbeck) so he bought me his jersey. I had to laugh because when I bought Seth's jersey, I saw the price on the ones with the nice stitched on numbers and said NO WAY! I even thought the one I got him was too much, so I felt like a brat when I saw that he got me the nice one. I guess I should be a little more generous to Seth in the future, since it is his money I am spending on him after all. Ha,ha!

While the kids briefly played with their toys, we packed and loaded the car and spent the rest of Christmas Day on the road to Tennessee. Sarah invited us out when she was here in October but Seth wasn't sure he wanted to travel. He finally had some time off so he wanted to sleep, but we decided in the end that we wanted to share the holiday with family.

I felt really bad about missing church on Christmas Day. I actually like when Christmas is on a Sunday. I feel like we should be at church on Christmas, and I also like that we only have sacrament meeting on Christmas Day so that we can also have plenty of time to celebrate with our families. But the drive to TN is 10 hours and we felt like we needed to get on the road early. We hauled to TN in record time (only stopping for Christmas dinner at the gas station) and found that cousins had even waited up for us, and thus began our TN Christmas Break.

I'll take you there later.

*In case anyone noticed that Chloe was in a size 6 pair of Alyssa's old Christmas jammies, that is because her new ones were in the dryer. Our dryer ignitor broke and now it takes about 6 hours to tumble dry a load of laundry at our house. Official count of major things breaking and needing to be replaced in 2011...4. The dryer, the dishwasher, the fridge and of course the AC. It is a wonderful miracle that we were able to pull Christmas off at all this year. Very blessed indeed.