Christmas Day 2011

With Jason working Christmas Eve we all had to wait for him to come home from work before we were allowed to go downstairs and see if Santa had come.  He got home just after 7:30.  he quickly opened his Christmas Eve present and put his new jammies on.  Mommy went downstairs to make sure Santa really had come to visit and then the kids all came thundering down the stairs.  We spent the first hour or so playing with the fun things that Santa had brought us.  Bey blades (a game the kids love) and a new Wii game.

We started opening presents after a while.  We start with the youngest family member who chooses a present for someone else.  Everyone takes turns and we open one present at a time.  We then take time to play with and investigate each new present.  We weren't even half way through opening when it was time to get ready for church.

After church we went to Grandma Carol and Grandpa Steve's for dinner.  We exchanged presents with them and then stayed and visited and played with them as well as Andy, Laura, Nick, and Noah.  We finally headed home around 7pm so we finish opening our presents.  It was a fabulous Christmas.  (Notice my boys matching sweaters?  And Layla's new dress?  I also have a new dress on thanks to Laura and "the mall" in Washington State.)

Christmas Eve

  This year was a little different for us.  Jason and I both worked on Christmas Eve.  I worked dayshift 7am until 7:30 pm at night.  Jason came in to work at 7pm and worked until 7:30am on Christmas morning.  This made our Christmas Eve a little strange.  Grandma and Grandpa Crowl kept the kids all day on Christmas Eve (so Jason could sleep) and treated them to an amazing day.  They definitely had more fun with them than they would have had with us.  I picked the kids up that night after work and took them home for a quick reading of Luke Chapter 2 and prayers and bed. We remembered to leave a gingerbread man out for Santa to snack on.  We also remembered our tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve.  It just always happens to be new pajamas that we get to wear.  ( The kids are FINALLY figuring out the jammie tradition!)

So I sent out Christmas cards this year with a little review on how our year went.  I mailed about about 35 cards with copies of this letter.  Today I printed out the last two and delivered them.  As I printed out the first of these two Layla said, "Mom, why does that say `2012 year in review?'"

Did you catch it?

2012!!!!  Crap!!!  O'well, I hope that all of my friends and family understand!