Journaling Christmas...

If what you were hoping for was just a picture slide show of our Christmas, scroll down and get that version...this post is for those few of you who want to know all about our day from top to bottom...(hi mom!)

On Christmas Eve, the kids wanted to open a gift really bad. When I was a kid we always opened a gift on Christmas Eve, but that was because, by some mystery, the gift we opened contained pajamas to sleep in. I started this tradition with my kids, but we abandoned it before Aliza was even born since Sinterklaas started bringing pj's for Dutch Christmas on the 5th, and it seemed redundant and anti-climatic. So, we just usually make them wait until Christmas morning to open any presents. Parker was insistent. (Really? Parker? hard to believe...) So we struck a deal with them. We had originally told them that they could call us from T's cell phone at 6:30 am to wake us up. This was to prevent them from trying to get up at 4 am like Brandy and Dave do. So we told them they could either open a present that night and wait until 8 am to get up or they could go to bed, wait until morning and get up at 6 (1/2 hour earlier...!!!) Of course, they chose the 6 am start time, so they were off to bed. Amazingly, they were all out cold prior to 10 pm. Woo Hoo! We had tracked Santa on line and found out he was getting close, and they know he only passes by once. Ty and Parker are cute to play along for Aliza... :)

So Maris and I had just settled down for a long winter's nap (or so it seemed) when the phone rang. What? 6:00 already? Maris looked at the clock and said, no, it was actually 4:55 am. But in Turkey, it was 1 pm. And Rick could not believe that it was almost 5 here and my kids were not up!! So after chatting with my bro for a few minutes, Maris and I decided that instead of trying to go back to sleep for all of 25 minutes, we might as well get up...so we ended up waking the kids up!

I got the Breakfast Casserole going...

...while the kids checked out what Santa had brought, and then we opened up our family gift. Maris and I wrapped (who am I kidding, Maris didn't wrap anything) all of the individual Wii things separately so that there would be more to open. Because otherwise, there just would have been one box...I believe in spreading the love! So they opened num chucks and remotes and games and then we told them that we had preordered a Wii at Game Stop and we could pick it up in January...wahahahahaha! Aren't we funny. Seriously, the Wii was the best (or maybe worst) present ever and it has not been turned off for 48 hours. And sadly, my arm is sore today from bowling and baseball and javelin throwing, not to mention swimming and running...and I threw my lower back out. Where is a good chiropractor when you need one? For a video game, it keeps you moving! But I won't go so far as to say that it replaces sunshine and exercise!
Speaking of, it was 65 degrees and perfect weather for the boys to try out their new Rip Stiks. I think that the Rip Stik is Parker's favorite gift...he has spent tons of time outside practicing, and several of his friends got them too, so there are plenty of kids to practice with!

They are kinda like skateboards, but only have 2 wheels and they twist in the middle and you have to wiggle to make them go...

But T has spent most of his free time with his nose in the 7th Harry Potter book. He started reading the series the week before Thanksgiving and took the week of Thanksgiving off while he was in Utah, but has finished all of them, except the last 1/2 of the 7th one. I suspect it won't be long before that one is history, too.

And Liza's favorite gift is this Baby Born doll that eats and drinks and subsequently pees and poops. We had to take an early morning trip to CVS to buy some diapers for it so it would stop leaking all over the carpet. When she peed through the 2 diapers that came with it, Liza decided to "potty train" her and fed her the bottle while she sat on the potty. But if she is sitting up, the water fills the tear cavity instead of the pee cavity and then she cries (real tears, nonetheless).

So after soaking through a couple of beach towels, we got the diapers. I haven't let her feed it the food, because after you feed her, you have to clean her out or the food rots inside of her (who bought this doll???) and I am just not ready to deal with that yet! I remember when I was little I had a Baby Alive and my mom wouldn't let me feed her the food for that same reason, and I was not scarred for life.

In the meantime, we put the tree (I hesitate to even call it that, as it has become nothing more than a dry needle crispy fire hazard) on the curb last night, and I am so glad to just be done with it. Maris wants a fake tree for next year. I still am not convinced, we'll see.
And just on a freaky side note...I woke this morning to the sound of lawn mowers. What? It is winter and the although it is sometimes warm, the grass has gone dormant. It was also cold today, so the lawn guys were out freezing while they mowed the lawn next door. (The house just sold, and the builder was just sprucing it up a little!) Hey, mow mine too, will ya??
Anyway, we had a great Christmas and hope all yous guys (Rick said that that sounds better than y'all) had a great day too! We are especially grateful at this time of year for the greatest gift ever given, the Atonement of Christ. It seems hard sometimes to remember with all that goes on that Christmas started with the birth of a sweet baby. May we all try a little harder to remember Him in our daily lives.