Christmas Fun!

Christmas this year has been amazing!!! I did all my shopping within three days of Christmas. WHEW! That was intense. :) Christmas Eve was a lot of fun. A bit of whining from the kids, mostly about wanting to open their Christmas Eve present RIGHT after breakfast. :S They calmed down eventually. They've all been loving to read each other stories lately, and even when Bridger can't read them, or Hunter can't read the whole thing, they'll make up the story from memory. I LOVE it!

I had fun taking pictures of Mom's Christmas decorations. Santa in the outhouse is everyone's favorite.

We finally opened our Christmas Eve presents. Mom made all the grandkids flannel jammies and robes. They all looked so cute in them!

 Before we went upstairs to bed, we set out the milk and cookies for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. We counted out exactly nine, one for each of the reindeer.

Once we were upstairs, we climbed into my bed and watched some old school Christmas cartoons. We love to snuggle!! :) We were tracking Santa on the Norad Santa tracker. Once we saw that Santa was in Canada, and headed towards us, the kids RAN to get into bed! It was fantastic! I didn't have to beg and plead at all to get them in bed. Well, except for Bridger. That kid NEVER goes to bed. Once Hunter and Alayna were in bed and on their way to dreaming of sugar plum fairies, I snuck down to the basement to wrap their presents. Bridger was playing quietly in bed, so no big deal. I got all the presents wrapped, and Skyler helped me carry them al upstairs.

I went upstairs and Bridger was STILL awake and playing. So after repeated attempts to get him to stay in bed failed miserably, I let him climb into bed with me. We watched White Christmas and snuggled until he told me to turn the movie off, cause he was finally ready to go to sleep. He gave me the best snuggles ever! I stayed up for a little while, but then decided sleep would be a good thing. haha!

6:30am rolls around, and I hear little footsteps coming into my room. Hunter woke up on his own and was all ready to go open presents! We woke up Alayna and Bridger. Alayna was content to stay in bed and sleep until it wasn't dark outside. What kid says that on Christmas morning?!?! Once we got Bridger's eyes open, he was all set to go see presents. They convinced Alayna to get out of bed. As we walked down the stairs, Hunter started jumping in excitement! It was a pretty impressive display, it's true.

As Hardy/Pinales tradition goes, we open presents one at a time, youngest to oldest. It helps avoid chaos. We don't handle chaos well in this family. LOL. I was so impressed with my kids! I was ready for whining. "Why didn't I get that toy?" "When is it my turn?". . . . Things like that. Nope. Didn't get any of that. Hunter was more than happy to hand presents to their owners and they were all just so excited for each other!  The toys everyone wanted this year were a pillow pet. Alayna got the unicorn, Hunter the lady bug and Bridger the panda. They each got scooters as well.

  

As we started putting all the toys together, and playing with them all ( I got a soldering iron! Can't wait to start making jewelry with it!!), Mom started making crepes. I love our annual Christmas crepe bar! Mom and Gregg bought gingerbread pig cookies for us, something that Dad did every year. That was really awesome of them to do for us. Here is a picture of the pig, so you know what I'm talking about. I always get looks of extreme confusion when I tell people about them. :)

Once we ate, the kids played with their zhu zhu pets. They are quite the strange little toys! Hunter tried out his new easel, and we explored Alayna's microscope set. (She's been saying she wants to be a scientist, and also LOVES to "invent" things. SO CUTE!)

We snuggled in my bed and watched Shrek the Fourth. Then we went out and played on the new scooters. Bridger needed help, he was a bit nervous to try it on his own. But Alayna and Hunter took off like old pros!

 

 They were all moving so fast, it was hard to get very many good pictures of them. :)

Then we went in, ate lunch and played a lot of Uno Attack, which was one of Alayna's presents. We had SO much fun! We paired up in teams. Alayna with Nana, Hunter with Papa and Bridger with me. After a few rounds, they all wanted to switch up the teams. So then it was Bridger with Nana, Hunter with Papa and Alayna with me. 

That game is FUN!

Then we went down and played on the Wii that Nana and Papa bought for the family. That was a lot of fun, it was the FIRST time my kids have played a video game. They'd never touched one before, so it was fun to see them pick up on it. And good grief, they picked up on it FAST! We played bowling. Alayna was super good at it! Hunter caught on after a while, and I had to help Bridger. His little hand was too small to go around the controller. :) SO CUTE! I challeneged Papa to a round of bowling. It was so funny, he'd hold the controller out after he'd swing, until the ball knocked down the pins. hahaha! Then we played tennis.

We started watching The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but about 2/3 of the way through, the kids decided they needed dinner. Nana made homemade macaroni, ham, tamales and cheesy potatoes. (So random, but I loved it! Well, excpet for the ham. Blech!) It made me so happy that mom and Gregg got tamales too! Another thing dad would always do for Christmas. YUM! The kids had hot dogs, and they always do this thing with their hot dog. They'll cut through it, starting at the midpoint of the hot dog. Then they'll turn it and cut it again until it has 4 "legs". They call it their squid hot dogs. hahaha! Alayna started this a year or so ago, and it cracks me up whenever they do it! After dinner we played with toys some more, I worked on my projects I'm making for my co-workers late Christmas presents. Hunter had a blast punching his Spiderman punching bag he got from Skyler.

Then Adam, Annie and their kids got here. CHAOS ensued! We watched them all open their Christmas presents and then whoever hadn't eaten dinner, or hadn't eaten enough dinner earlier ate. Then Adam, Mom, Meagan and I got into a debate about HCG. Adam said he'd pay for us all to try it, to jumpstart the whole family onto being healthier and losing weight. I don't know. . . I've been against it for a long time. Seriously against it. Adam made good arguments for it, having been against it himself for a long time. But, if he's going to pay for it, I'll try it. See how it goes. :S There's just NO WAY I'd pay for it myself. lol

 He sure knows how to take a good picture!

 Mmmm. . . tamales!

 I love how when Gregg is avoiding having his picture taken, he always ends up having blackmail pictures taken instead. LOL

 Flipping me off?

 We set a trap for an elf and CAUGHT one!

I am amazed they all stood still for a moment to get a picture. LOL

Once everyone left, and I got the kids in bed, the grown ups played some more rounds of Uno Attack. Game night is so much more fun as an adult when unlimited candy and swearing is allowed. HAHAHA! Just kidding mom. Actually, I think mom swore the most out of all of us. LOL At one point, she had about half the deck in her hand. She was laughing so hard she was crying, or maybe she was just crying. I'm really not sure. Either way, there was a lot of laughter!

Amazing day. I truly love this time of year!!