I hope your Christmas was as good as ours because ours was awesome. Christmas is truly the time of year to go overboard. And the kids don’t mind a bit.

We spent Christmas Eve at Grandma O’s house where we got to choose from four different soups; potato, vegetable, chicken enchilada, and chili. Plus a bunch of really yummy side dishes. And some delicious cookies. After dinner we went for a ride to look at lights and search for Santa Claus. We spotted him right as we were leaving, but he was moving at moc 10 mock 10 mac 10 a very fast pace and we lost him. But on our way back to Grandma’s house we saw him land near her house. We tried to speed home, but we just missed him. But he left behind tons and tons and tons of presents [as you can see over there to the left].

Keaton and Justis helped Aunt Candy and their cousin Jack hand out prensent this year. I think it made them feel pretty important. Then the kids dove in to their presents (not literally of course). I wasn’t even aware of everything they all got until we got all of the presents home and I sorted through them to put them away. We all made out like bandits this year. We brought both of our vans and I drove the blue one home jam packed with presents. It was crazy.

Then on Christmas morning we celebrated at home. The kids woke up at twenty to eight, but they didn’t wake us up. I was shocked. They just played quietly upstairs until we woke up. At 9:30, Lee got out of bed to go to the bathroom and Spencer was waiting on the stairs. “Is it time to open presents yet dad?” So we figured we better stop torturing them and we got up to open presents. Santa had our stockings filled to the rim and he left presents spilling out from the corner.

I can’t list everything we got cause I’m not sure my server has that much space, but some of the highlights are….

Justis got a Hot Wheels game for his Playstation 2 from Aunt Candy. He’s been asking for it for a long time so he was so excited when he saw it. Grandma Cathy got him a gigantic remote control sports car. And I mean gigantic. He can pratically ride it. He’s already tried it out in the street, but it started snowing on Christmas day and, much like a real sports car, the wheels couldn’t grip in the snow and the car just kept spinning out of control. And Lee and I got him a 3mp Canon Powershot digital camera.

In the days before Christmas Keaton got on our website and checked out his wishlist. He was very concerned because he had asked me to put a punching bag on his wishlist and it wasn’t there. On Christmas Eve he found out why. Grandma Cathy had bought him the punching bag so I removed it from his list. He was also concerned that I forgot to put Animal Crossing and Rebel Strike (a Gamecube and a PS2 game) plus a Gamecube controller. On Christmas day he found out why those were missing. Lee and I got him both games and a controller.

Both Keaton and Justis got $80 in Best Buy gift certificates too, so I imagine there will be some more video games making their way home.

This was the year of the doll for Skyler. She got a Cabbage Patch Doll named Mallory Mellissa from Aunt Lisa and Uncle John. And Grandma Cathy got her the Bitty Baby Twins…the ones with the dark hair. Skyler named them Skyler and Spencer because they are brown haired boy/girl twins just like her and Spencer. At home on Christmas day, she got a new Bratz doll that came with a blind date (you had to open the box to see what boy you got with the Bratz doll). She also got a big dollhouse bookshelf to hold all of her dolls and her books.

The first gift Spencer opened was his new Gameboy from Grandma Cathy. He’s been wishing for that for quite a while and he was so happy to get it…especially since Keaton and Justis don’t have one. But even better then the Gameboy was his new Spiderman underwear (he’s a weird child, what can I say?). He wanted to try his new underwear on right in the middle of Christmas Eve, but we convinced him to wait until we got home.

Caleb is swimming in Rescue Hereos thanks to Grandma Cathy. He got a big firetruck, an airplan, a boat and tons and tons of ‘guys.’ He’s in heaven with all of these ‘guys.’ He carries them around the house and takes a bath with them and sleeps with them. Caleb’s big brothers and sister got him a shirt that says “Best Lil Bro.” It’s so cute. Plus Lee and I got him a fleece Gap sweatshirt just like his brothers and his sister’s sweatshirts. We also got him a ton of new pants; jeans, courdoroy and sweatpants. So he’s stylin’.

Lee and I got cryptic Christmas cards from my mom. We had to put our puzzle pieces together to find out she’s getting us a dishwasher. We just need to go pick it out. And I guess Grandma O is getting sick and tired of me borrowing her luggage, cause she [and Mom] got me two pieces of luggage. It’s burgandy and spacious…awesome. Now I need to go on vacation so I can use it. I also got Vegas Tycoon and Lee got me Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. I love those games. But I have to be careful because they are very addictive. I’ve spent the last three nights staying up until 1am playing Vegas Tycoon. Lee also got me a pair of slippers. I love them. They keep my toes nice and toasty while I sit at my desk blogging [and playing my Tycoon games].

Lee got a bunch of new clothes…so he’s stylin’ too! He looks very handsome in his new jeans. I even got him some brand name jeans so he can be one of the “cool kids.” I also got him some new brown dress shoes. He has this weird phobia (and he makes fun of how anal I am?!?). He won’t wear white tennis shoes with jeans. [Now we know where the kids picked up their 'weird' fashion style.] Continuing with our Christmas tradtion, Lee also got a new pair of Christmas boxers from Aunt Candy. [A funny side note: Last year Lee's boxers were sparkly and he said "Look! Some bling bling for my ding ding." He's so funny!] This year even I got some cute Christmas underwear (but you won’t get to see pix of my underwear on this blog…this is a family blog after all.)

As you can see we were certainly spoiled this year. We are so thankful for the time we got to spend with family. And we are so grateful for all of the wonderful gifts from our family. This truly is a magical time of year.

But now it’s over. We’ve already taken down our Christmas tree to make room for our new fish tank*. Below you can see the corner of the living room before Santa came, after Santa came and now that Christmas is over. It sad to have to go back to work and get back to normal. It was so much fun spending time with family and playing with the kids and their new toys and video games.

*One of Lee’s friends had this 55 gallon fish tank just sitting in his storage garage so he gave it to us. Isn’t it awesome? Our two itty bitty fish won’t know what to think. They are currently in a 20 gallon tank and now they’ll be in the lap of luxury in this gigantic tank.