Merry Christmas!

Ahhh, Christmas morning . . . 5:30 AM.

"Boys--stop whispering! It's still in the 5's."
"But we're awake, and we're so excited!"
"You have two hours, seriously, go back to sleep."

They did :) But it's hard to keep their dad asleep past 7; he's more excited than them all to get up and get coffee rolling on Christmas morn. It wasn't much later when the bright eyes began to appear, one after another (you'll never guess which was last to join the scene :) Buck put the cinnamon rolls I'd bought at the grocery store (we've tried homemade breakfast before and it is always a distracting disaster, so frozen food aisle it is! :) Oh, wait, I take that back--we also enjoyed some of Grandma J's goodie box, which included homemade (but not by us) banana bread, yum!

While the rolls baked, we emptied our Christmas stockings. Everyone seemed happy with the contents, Nerf guns and ammo, peppermint candy sticks, lego minifigures, sashes (woohoo), socks for Buck (stockings in his stocking :), of course their books--Walt Disney (childhood), Clara Barton (childhood), Sassafrass Springs, and Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm; and a box of pins for Caelan--always crafty that one :)


Breakfast eaten, we proceeded through the opening of gifts. Graysen's excitement is top-notch ALL the time! He makes giving gifts so much fun because he is so thrilled with whatever appears under the package wrapping. He also loves to give gifts and was very thoughtful in his selection--including a gift for his buddy, Isaiah (who came by a couple days after G delivered his and said, "I was counting my money last night and I had enough to get you a present too." Too cute!

By 10, the gift unwrapping was complete. The girls had not as much as usual, because we are redecorating their room and most of their gift money is tied up in paint supplies and bedding which they helped pick out (I wrapped a lot of it anyway :) The third sewing project that I did NOT get to is their curtains, but I did let them open up that fabric again anyway ;)

For lunch, the kids pulled leftovers out of the fridge while Buck went to find Chinese food in the city. He forgot his phone. Boy was that weird to text him and have it chirp right next to me! He wasn't gone long though, and the food was okay. We had big plans for dinner, so it wasn't a big deal to not get our fill at lunch. Plus, goodness the stack of goodies from work, from the girls, and from Grandma piled up in what we're now calling "The Dessert Corner." We still have half of C's giant birthday cake up there, and an apple pie that we had prepped ahead of time for Christmas and still haven't even cut into!

His sister surprised him with the bear slippers he's been hoping she'd knit!

The afternoon was rainy---like monsoon rainy! It poured, it thundered, it lightning-ed!! At one point, the kids just need to expend some energy, so when the lightning stopped and the rain fell in sheets, they all ran out to play. The were soaked to the bone! But I had a gigantic pile of new clothes and new bedding to wash already, so we just added the sloggy outside loads to the line-up :) After they dried out, the played a couple of new board games they received and of course built legos and braided hair :)

For dinner we made everyone's traditional Christmas meal--fried chicken and Brussel sprouts! Ha! Mashed potatoes and gravy. Cherry salad and cranberry sauce. It was weird, but it was tasty! We kept meaning to watch "It's a Wonderful Life," but the Broncos were on, so that didn't work out :) Maybe sometime this week, we'll get a chance.

My stylish night-driving glasses, "As Seen on TV" Buck's Christmas tradition in gift giving :)

Gab was very excited to open a pair of boots in her very own size!

Look at G$'s face :) Gab gave him a lava lamp and he's over the moon!!

Guess what C gave Gab? Gum! A Costco-sized variety pack--does she know her sister or what?

In addition to fashion, my cute hubby likes watches. The kids got him that really neat wooden watch (it's actually made of wood!!), so I gave him a watch box to keep them all arranged pretty-like :)

Our newly-minted Cubs fans were pretty excited to get their first official Cubs apparel!

Graysen even bought a gift for the hamster! He noticed the little treats at the pet store, specially designed to mineralize them and dull their teeth (yes, please!!) Pretty neat that he thought of the littlest pet on Christmas morning :)

The only weird thing that happened was Buck needed to go to bed around 9 PM because he had a 3 AM shift the next day. But, that's when the fire trucks started rolling into the neighborhood, then the police cars, then the ambulances! It was warm enough that we had the sliding door open during our dinner cooking process and could keep the windows open at night. We heard alarms going off and the firefighters beating down doors at the condo complex just up the street from us. Then one fireman ran out carrying a person in his arms. He put the body on the ground and immediately began CPR. When the stretcher was ready, the ambulance rushed off with the person inside.




We later heard the man was found in his running car in the garage :( We don't know if he survived or not, but they had to break down doors to clear all the other buildings to make sure no one else was in danger inside. I went to bed at 11:30 and there were still service vehicles flashing on the street. Our neighbors had to carry their baby home on foot and another was delayed more than an hour in his truck because there is no other way in or out than the one that was blocked. Quite a crazy end to an otherwise peaceful, quiet, and pleasant Christmas day.