The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I can't believe that December has come and (almost) gone, along with Christmas!  This month has been crazy, and busy, and fun.  Like last year, we stayed home for Christmas.  The kids were so excited and could hardly wait in those last few days.

Grandma and Grandpa Webb sent a present for Christmas Eve... new pajamas.  The kids were over the top excited about the characters on their pajamas.  Natalie had My Little Pony, Kelton had Sonic the Hedgehog, and Damon had Skylanders (we don't even have Skylanders, but he was thrilled).  I was afraid they might not ever calm down and go to sleep.  Arie got some too, but she is so small and they were so big.  After pajamas were on, we loaded them in the car to go look at Christmas lights while I read Luke 2 to them.

Christmas morning... before letting the kids come down.  And juggling that feeling of "is there enough?  Is there too much?"

And here are some favorite pictures.

Each of the kids earned their own money over the past few months and used it to buy a present for whichever sibling they had this year.  This Optimus Prime was from Kelton and Damon had been asking for it for a while.

Natalie has been endlessly talking about these Equestria Girls dolls (My Little Pony turned into humans) for months and months.  And has been begging for one for just as long.  (They aren't my favorite because they are made to look so much like Monster High dolls, but after much discussion and even making Natalie pray about it :) we decided she could have one.)  Kelton bought her this one and she gave him the biggest hug after she opened it.

I made hats for the kids.  Damon doesn't know what Ninjago is, but when he saw some others I was making he asked, "is that a ninja hat?!"  He was so excited about it and told me that he wanted a black ninja hat.  He was excited to open this.

I made an owl hat for something a few months back and ever since, Kelton has wanted an owl hat.  Plus, he loves blue, his school mascot is an owl, and two of his uniform colors are blue and gray.  So this hat was perfect.  :)  He's already worn it several times since he opened it, including this morning when he was cold after taking a shower.

Natalie also got a hat, but it was my first hat making fail.  I tried to do a Princess Celestia hat.  It was white with a few stripes of her hair colors and then I tried to make her eyes and put them on.  The result was.... um... I have no words.  I should have taken a picture so you could see what I mean.  And because I don't take craft failure very well, I ended up going to JoAnn's to buy a new set of yarn--on Christmas Eve.  I frantically made a whole new hat that ended up being plain with some colored stripes and nothing else on it.  I told Natalie I could try to put Celestia's sun-shaped cutie mark on it, but I'm not real confident in how that might turn out.  I felt bad I didn't have something equally as cute as the boys' hats for her.  She was gracious and told me she loved both hats.  I didn't even consider making one for Arie, who hates to even have her hooded bath towel on her head.  Such a shame because these hats are adorable on babies.

Santa was smart enough this year to assemble the baby toys and then wrap them ready-to-use.  (Actually, I believe it was his super smart wife who gave him the idea.)  Arie got this car, a rocking giraffe, and a dinosaur toy with lots of ABC buttons.  Each kept her plenty occupied (and away from everyone else's stuff) while the rest of us opened presents.  She loved this car.  She kept going back to it and would sit down and play and dance to the music. 

We've been invaded... I think these three Furby's stole the show this Christmas.  (This is one of the items Santa braved sending his poor elves in on Black Friday to retrieve.)  They do all kinds of things, including interacting with each other and you can play/take care of them using your phone or tablet.  Needless to say, my iPhone and Nate's iPad have been hijacked over the past two days.

We didn't go through and make sure the kids had all their stuff assembled, but here is each of them with their presents.  You might notice all the blankets in the pictures... Grandma and Grandpa Webb made each of them a super soft blanket for their bed with their name embroidered on it. 

Kelton had a lot of Legos and building stuff.

Damon got some Trio blocks and Imaginext planes and dragon.

Natalie was mostly dominated by My Little Pony.  (You can see my stack in the background.  Nate got me a new hand mixer to replace mine that died a few months back and has been sorely missed.  There's a cute skirt on top.  And a Nikon digital SLR camera, which I would love to learn how to use but am a little afraid of it.  And while we are on the topic of the parents, I got Nate a Wii U and Disney Infinity.)

Stockings...

We also did FaceTime with my parents so they could see the kids unwrap their presents from them.  They were cute stand alone fabric zipper pouches filled with candy, toys, and $10.  The kids love them and have already found things to put in them.  And since Wal Mart had problems with getting my order to me on time, I had the iPad mini at my house that all of my siblings and I bought for Mom and Dad.  So we had our kids open it for them so they could see it.

We also did FaceTime with Nate's parents while they opened their present from us.  We got them a generic tablet, which I hope holds up for them and I hope they enjoy.  We pre-loaded apps like Gospel Library, Skype, Facebook, and Netflix on there for them--things they will hopefully find useful.

Christmas day went by so quickly.  So quickly in fact that neither Nate or I showered or got out of our pajamas--which actually drives both of us crazy.  But part of why that happened could also be due to the fact that neither one of us was feeling real great.  I've been battling a sinus infection for about week and Nate's cold has morphed into something new too.  We played with new toys with the kids, cleaned up, cleaned up some more, made a nice dinner, which half the family didn't eat (little stinkers), and were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day.  But it was a good, fun day.