Christmas Day

Last night, after our party, Corey drove over to his dad's house to load up the van with gifts. Joseph helped him. They came back home and parked in the garage. I set an alarm for 1:30 am to get up and set out the presents. But then I put in earplugs. Thus, I did not hear the 1:30 alarm. Thankfully God woke up at 2:30. I thought "That would have been bad..." but not really bad, just a little sad if they woke up and there were no presents. I took a pic of the kids all sleeping in the front room. How many can you find?

I spy little baby Mary! I was impressed that Joseph, Eliza and Mary participated in this tradition. That is more than I would do! I went over to the side room. Cookies for Santa, clementines for his reindeer. 

I poured the milk down the sink. Sorry to be wasteful, but I gotta hurry and do this - no time to carefully pour milk back into the container. Plus that would probably be too noisy. I was walking as quietly as I could, but it felt like everything was noisy. I tried to do the stockings, but the bags of chips were too noisy, so I did cheetos for ODPK and then I didn't do chips for any of the other kids. Then I went to the car. I wasn't sure if I was going to have to open the garage, but thank you Corey for backing it in. There were a lot of bins in the car. All zip tied. Luckily there were clippers there in the garage with my biking stuff (when I cleared a new path Mon Nov 10) so I didn't have to go back into the kitchen. Clipped those open. The bookshelf box was heavy. All the bins were heavy. It was hard to do it quietly. I'm sure I was waking people up. 3:08 am, one bin left...

For the last big bin I was ready to just turn it over and dump the gifts out, but... I resisted. I placed them one by one with care. It took me an hour to put it all around the tree. I tried to do chips twice more, but nope, too noisy, and I don't want to take the stockings all down to do it in Corey's office, yeah... so 3:26 am, I'm calling it good. Yay all done.

After I snuck upstairs at 3:30 I heard Natalie whisper to Owen "Are they there?" And then I heard them stomp across the room. Aaaand they're up. It took a bit for me to fall back asleep with them pitter pattering around. Hyrum asked me yesterday about them getting up early to play the Wii. I said to wait until 6. Not sure if they did. Corey and I stayed in bed until 8. Wesley called around 8:30. HE COMES HOME IN FIVE DAYS!!! Wes showed us a spider man cowboy that Santa brought him. 

Kids/boys were playing the Wii while Corey and some of the girls made breakfast. 

Hyrum had been looking forward to destroying everyone in Mario Kart, but then reflected this morning that he had forgotten about Christian....

Christian was a force to be reckoned with as Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong was bigger and "heavier" and kept pushing Hyrum off the track. The tournament ended on Rainbow road, with Hyrum having his first bout of luck and maintaining first place for most of the race, only to miss a booster at the end and have Christian get it and push Hyrum off the road right before the finish line. Everyone mourned with Hyrum's tragic last minute defeat. Hyrum fell to his knees and put his hands over his head. I was laughing at it all, it was funny. Hyrum "This is too stressful!! I need a break!" 

That was a good time to stop for breakfast. Lily's sourdough bread with a pretty star on top, just like a Christmas tree. 

There was a feast prepared - eggs, bacon, yogurt and berries with all the fixin's 

Mary!!! So cute in her Christmas pjs

Little kids ready to eat, and so are their dragons! 

Beka and Matt made these dragons for the kids with their 3D printer. I put them in their stockings which was awesome cause they had news toys to play with all morning. Daniel had asked Matt if he's able to print a dragon when we went to visit my dad on his birthday last week. Daniel monopolized all of Matt's attention talking about it and looking up different dragon files. Beka was so sweet to ask if the other kids wanted one, and I thought they'd like to all play together, so they made one for each of the kids and one for Katharine too, and K got two - a mom and a baby dragon (in Daniel's left hand). The last one finished printing yesterday and Corey and I went to get them after climbing. Owen is the longest cause he's the oldest, Daniel's is the only one with wings, which is cool. Peter's is his fav color green, and K's is pink and purple. So fun, they were a total hit. At breakfast, the little kids commented on how there were so many presents under the tree. 

That caused the older kids reflect on that one Christmas years ago (2019 to be exact), when there were not so many gifts. We talked to Ethan and Bella this morning. They are in Colorado. Ethan said Santa didn't visit their hotel room and it reminded him of that sad Christmas day too, so I sent him the post to read. I had the link and opened the post and read it to the kids as we ate Christmas Crepes. That tree and those meager presents really do look so sad! haha!

Then into the front room for family "secret sibling" gifts. Corey and I didn't participate in that, but they kids had gotten us some presents that we opened. Mary is a gift for us all 0 

Peter got Joseph a few random items that I'm assuming were from the dollar store. 

Lily made Mel this cute cork board so she can remember an important date coming up. 

I should come back later and say who had who and what they got them. It was all good though and fun, And now to the white tree for gifts from Corey and I - Owen got sports shirts, Abi opening bedsheets

Lily with headphones, Sophi with a jewelry box, Natalie opening her sheets.

Katharine's best present was a Fisher Price Little People Disney Princess pink carriage. 

Peter was excited about getting Spider-Man webshooters.

Our work here is done. Mel and Christian left after that to go be with his parents and siblings. Kids  at our house enjoyed their gifts for a bit while Corey and I snuck out for a Christmas Day bike ride because today had a high temperature of 53 degrees!!! Wow! I wore normal biking shoes, not my boots, and we needed no hand or toe warmers. The trail was 100% clear and perfect. At the ruins ~

Eliza and Mary sneaking in a needed nap ~

Corey and I got back around 2pm, but 2pm was what time we were supposed to be at Wayne's... doh. I got a salad ready and sent the kids ahead with it. Corey and I cleaned ourselves up and then would have left but then we found we had to re-wrap gifts that the kids had opened for Nancy, Jeremy while we were gone. We got there at 3. We brought some zebra popcorn and rolls. Wayne let Nancy now we had arrived and then she and her family came over. Ham and creamy funeral potatoes, my balsalmic salad, rolls, and a jello salad.

Mark and his family are gone on a trip to Israel, so that's why they didn't join this year. Ethan and Bella are in Colorado. They'll be here Sunday after they visit Bella's family. Mel and Christian at his folks'. The dragons are at the table enjoying their food (Peter fed his some leaves).

Peter with his pet dragon.

I laid on the couch after eating and took my needed nap. I missed the gift giving, but Nancy took some pics. 

I didn't mean to sleep through the whole thing, but I did. 

Kids excited to open a few more gifts. 

Then we stayed and visited and more people took their Christmas naps...

Made sense to put Natalie and Katharine on a couch together.

We woke them up at 7 and headed to the cars. Joseph and Eliza got their instructions for feeding Nancy's cat (they are leaving for a vacation to St. Kit tomorrow) and Mark's lizard that Nancy was watching, and then we left to go by the Hibberts house after that. My dad loves to hold the babies if they'll let him. And Mary is so friendly, she was ok with that. 

She's also a bit busy, so she was soon off exploring.

We had fun watching her practice crawling if something caught her interest, like a phone!

Natalie and Katharine continued their nap on the drive over, and Owen and Peter fell asleep as well, which made sense since they got up at 3:30. Abi wasn't feeling very good, so she headed home with the kids who were asleep in the car. Dad holding Mary again. My dad visiting with Hyrum. We enjoyed some shrimp with cocktail sauce that my parents had out, yum. 

My parent's Christmas nativity mantle. 

More visiting on the floor. We stayed for like an hour. 

And with that, we're calling it good! Another Christmas Day is in the books, and it was a success. Visiting with family, giving and receiving gifts of love, and time remembering God's love sent to all of us in the gift of his son. I really enjoyed the Follow Him podcast with Bonnie Cordon. I'll blog that more later, but it's 3:11 am on Dec 30 and I'm finally done with this post, so I'm heading to bed. To all a good night.