The night of the 23rd, I got food poisoning. I was sick all night long.
So the day of Christmas Eve I wasn't feeling so great either.
And all of the kids but Lexi had colds.
So we just had a low key day at home.
We let the kids open their gifts from Michelle and Justin that afternoon,
which ended up being a great idea.
They got scooter boards, which they played with for hours while I rested and Sean made dinner.
These gifts are amazing. The kids have played with them everyday since.
And now lots of kids in our neighbor want them too.
Thank you Michelle and Justin! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these gifts!
That night we tried something new, instead of letting our kids each open one present,
we did one family present.
The present was actually several layers. Probably close to 20.
The kids took turns rolling a dice. If they got evens they got to open a layer.
The first layer was the book, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
The last layer was the Grinch movie.
And in between were layers of candy, and $10 in singles,
and a layer with small stuffed animals for all the kids.
It was a huge hit!
After that we watched the movie. It was the new Jim Carey one.
Lexi loved it. Eli didn't.
Here's the kids' stockings and presents from Santa.
Our poor tree. Three stands of lights went out, causing almost all the lights to stop working.
And Ruby pulled off all the ornaments on the bottom.
The morning Ruby woke up early. I don't remember what time exactly,
but I want to say that it was before 6 am.
We brought her into bed with us.
Then the girls came into our room.
We made them wait a little bit before we woke up Eli.
Here's a picture of the kids before they went downstairs to see all the presents.
Avery was so excited to see that Santa had left her a stuffed unicorn.
And Lexi got a stuffed pig like she'd asked for.
Santa also got Lexi an Anna dress.
Lexi got Q-Tips for Christmas.
There's a story behind this gift.
Before Christmas, Lexi had been trying to guess her presents.
One gift she just "knew" was a pig stuffed animal. I would never admit that it was.
So I referred to the gift as her Q-Tips.
So on Christmas Eve, I unwrapped the gift, took out the pig, and put Q-Tips in the box instead.
She was so surprised on Christmas morning.
And I couldn't stop laughing.
(The pig in the picture below is the one from Santa. The one from us she opened later.
The spoiled girl got two pigs!)
The week before Christmas, Eli came up to me and randomly told me that he wanted to do
a construction site outside the next day and that he wanted the digger from Costco.
Luckily, we bought that exact digger over a month before that.
Avery got a set of My Little Ponies.
The week before Christmas, Avery told me that she wanted My Little Ponies for Christmas.
I told her sorry but I had already bought all her gifts.
Luck for her that this was one of them. I knew she wanted My Little Ponies before she did.
The boys spent a lot of time assembling the digger.
Here we are after we opened all the presents, except for the ones from my parents.
We wanted to open those until they were on the phone with us.
Avery got this giant unicorn from my parents. She was SOOOOOO excited!
My parents always find the best cars for Eli.
We got lots of fresh snow again. So Sean got to shovel.
Eli helped his dad clear the driveway.
It was a great first Christmas in our new house! We feel so blessed.
