Christmastime 2012

It is snowing perfect little sparking snowflakes right now, and they are twinkling down next to the Christmas lights shining outside my window.  I am watching one of those cheesy TV holiday movies I still have on my DVR ("A Christmas Kiss") and it still feels like Christmas to me!  I guess I am just not ready for Christmas to be over.  So I will do a Christmasy blog post!

 

On Christmas Eve, we were driving around to visit Preston's mom and then over to my parents' house for a party.  Cora was singing pretty much the whole time we were in the car, which was a pretty dang long time.  Her two songs of choice were "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."  Unfortunately for us, she doesn't know very many of the words to "Here Comes Santa Claus," and so here is what she sang for the 20 minutes STRAIGHT she was singing that song:

 

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus Lane!

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus Lane!

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus Lane!

 

She knows most of the words to Rudolph, though they don't always make it out of her mouth in the right order.  I know that she was driving Dax (and possibly Preston) crazy with the singing, but it made me smile to see how happy she was that Christmas was here:

 

After eating our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of pizza and egg nog with my family (I know, we are so high-brow and sophisticated!), we watched Scrooge and played with the kids and ate treats until it was time to go.  The kids got to open a present on Christmas Eve (that is what Cora has on her lap in the video), and they all got new Christmas pajamas.  I wish I had a video of Dax opening his jammies.  He was soooo excited for his new Christmas pajamas since I had to take his Santa pajamas from last year away a month or two ago because he just couldn't fit in them anymore.  After everyone was all snuggled into their jammies, we packed ourselves up and headed home.  The kids were just the teeeeeniest bit excited, and it took them a while to calm down and get ready for sleep.  Right before we went upstairs, Arden wrote a note to Santa to leave with his cookies.  Side one :

 If you can't read it, it says: "Dear Santa I hop you have a good Christmas HO-HO-HO"  Side 2:

"I believe in you :)"

How cute is she?  I wish I could save up these Christmases while the kids are little and use them up slowly over my whole life, instead of having them fly by so fast all in a row!   I guess all I can do is soak them up as much as I possibly can.  

Preston and I got all the presents wrapped and put under the tree around midnight.  There is nothing better than that moment when everything is ready and the house is so quiet and still:

Love it!  I wish I could go back there right now and do it all again.

Christmas morning was finally here!  The kids were so happy to open their stockings and see the little gifts inside:

We waited for grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles to come over to finish opening the presents.  We had some cinnamon rolls and watched the sun came up on a beautiful Christmas morning.  Here is Cora, looking out the window:

When Grandma and Grandpa got there, they showed the kids how Santa's reindeer had left footprints all over our yard (the footprints look a lot like the prints from our local neighborhood deer, but the kids knew they were Dancer and Blitzen).  Arden old everyone that while she was sleeping she opened her eyes and saw Santa's hand waving to her through her window from out on the roof.  Wow! 

Dax had a couple of BIG boxes, and couldn't wait to open them.  He scored some large new friends:

After breakfast and some treats, we headed over to my Grandma Wilson's house.  It is always good to see her and she was doing well.  She gave us a book about her life when she was young for Christmas full of pictures and stories.  It was so fun to look at I read it all today when I should have been cleaning up the kitchen ;-).  I learned quite a few things about her and my Grandpa that I didn't know before.  Here is a picture of 4 generations of moms and daughters on Christmas 2012:

We headed to Preston's mom's house after that.  The kids had so much fun eating the delicious soup she had made for us (and her treats) and playing with their cousins, big and small.  Lately, they love to play with their cousin Jacob, who just got back from a mission a few months ago.  They treat him like a jungle gym and he is a very good tickler.  They were asking when he could come over for another play date as I put them into the car. 

 

We went home and played with our new toys for a little while, and then it was time for bed!  The kids had been asking and asking (and asking) for new "Dream Lites" toys for Christmas.  If you don't have a little kid and have never heard of a Dream Lite, it is a stuffed animal that projects lights in the shapes of stars and moons onto the ceiling...kind of a toy/night light combo.  The kids all ended up buying each other Dream Lites for Christmas.  (Grandpa was a little jealous of Dax's Dream Lite because it was a fuzzy bear dressed up in a 49ers jersey, and along with the stars it projects onto the ceiling is a 49ers logo!  Maybe if Grandpa is a good boy I will get him one for his birthday).  The kids were excited to try out their new bedtime toys and jumped right under the covers. I was worried they would be up all night watching the lights on their ceiling, but they were so tired from wrestling with Jacob that they all dropped off to sleep pretty quick. 

 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!