Christmas

We had such a nice Christmas holiday this year! Donnie finished the semester Dec. 13 and so we had a lot of time to spend together as a family. With how busy he has been lately, it was nice to just relax together and play with the kids.

Christmas morning we invited my parents over for breakfast and to watch the kids open presents.

Here is a shot of our tree after Santa dropped off his gifts too. He forgot to put together Sydney's kitchen. Also pictures of Sydney checking out what was left of Santa's cookies and the reindeer's Cheerios, cheering for her kitchen (she has been begging for one for months), and admiring her Barbie Diamond Castle doll.

Jaxon was pretty psyched about the wrappings and tissue paper in his gifts.Santa gave him a "musical zoo." It is really cute and he and Sydney love it, BUT it is way too loud!

That afternoon we went to my Grandma's house to eat and visit with the rest of our family - well, the ones who were in town. One of my brothers is living in Guam with his family , and my oldest brother went to visit his wife's fam in VA.

It was nice to spend time together and it is always nice to eat everyone's yummy food :-). After we ate we opened gifts. At Thanksgiving each year we draw names and buy that person a gift. Then we open all our gifts - youngest kid to oldest kid, one at a time. When we hit the adult ages it becomes a free for all. Jaxon is currently the youngest - at least until April, so he went first.

When everyone left, we visited with Grandma a little longer and then headed home to relax and let Sydney play with her toys.