That night, the kids opened their one gift, new pjs. They left cookies & carrots out for Santa and his reindeer, got showered, then we took turns reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. I love having kids that can read! Matt read the story of Christ's birth from Luke 2, we said prayers and tucked the kids into bed.
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| Tracking Santa on NORAD |
I got busy baking and prepping food for the next day while Matt set the trap for the kids, put things together and we got everything set out under the tree. We ended up staying up way too late which made it super hard to get up and going the next morning.
*side note: About 3:30am, I heard crying and someone yelling, "Moooooooommmy!" I patted Matt and told him Brooklyn was crying, which I thought was really odd. He went in to check on her and she said she was scared because of the trap Matt had set, which had cardboard with a hole cut out blocking her bedroom doorway! She thought it was an eye looking at her or something. Haha!! I guess Matt told her to climb in bed with Blake and she stayed there for the rest of the night.
The kids woke up around 7am and were ready to see what Santa brought for them! They had to get through the trap and then we went downstairs to open gifts.
Santa brought Lego Friends sets for Brooklyn, a tournament chess set for Blake, plasma cars for Gavin and Preston and a Radio Flyer tiny trike for Hayden. Stockings for the kids were full of Pokemon cards, a Lego minifigure, toothbrushes, yo-yos, gloves, a small lego set for the boys, a scarf, sunglasses, nail polish and earrings for Brooklyn, Origami paper for Blake, Nerf darts for the older boys, Hot Wheels for Preston and a little bit of candy, with an orange in the toe of the stocking.
The kids got lots of good stuff~ and I think they liked everything!
Matt blew our $100 limit for each other and bought me a Bosch.
I stuck to our budget (thankyouverymuch) and got Matt an Apple TV.
We got a couple of dance games for the Xbox Kinect and a couple family board games- Apples to Apples Jr. and Hedbanz.
Our family gift was a basketball hoop. And of course there HAS to be a story. We got the approval from our HOA to put the pole in the ground so Matt cemented the bottom portion in last week. He started putting the rest of the pole and backboard together in the garage a couple days before Christmas. He was ready to attach the backboard to the pole, he discovered that one of the pole parts was wrong!! Obviously having is set up and ready to go Christmas morning was not gonna happen. He called the company and said the new pole parts would be here Friday, so the backboard ended up in the house on display with instruction for Daddy to put it together later. ;)
The AFTERMATH
We spent the rest of the day with family; Palmers first, a quick trip over to see Grandma & Grandpa LeBaron, then over to Hamiltons.
I have to admit, I wasn't too happy with the way this Christmas season went down. We were way too busy with something every single night and we hardly had time to do the little things as a family, the things that are important to me. We never even put all our ornaments on the tree. Neither Hayden, Matt or I had stockings until I bought three randoms from the picked over selection at WalMart Christmas Eve. I never got to make treats to take to our friends and neighbors. No Christmas cards sent out. I barely took our kids' pictures (for cards?) three days before Christmas. I know that having a big birthday party for Hayden took up a lot of the time that I would've otherwise spent on carrying out Christmas traditions. And the fact that the kids got out of school only four days before Christmas made it seem like we had no time beforehand. Next year, I'm hoping to simplify and be more picky about what we choose to spend our time doing together as a family.
Merry Christmas from our family!!
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