Christmas Day

This Christmas season has been a little hectic and the boys have been bugging each other a lot. I felt like we didn't always have the Christmas spirit with us. So it was nice to celebrate Christmas on Sunday this year.

We talked to the boys and decided we would wait to open presents until after church. Our church begins at 9 am so we actually got to sleep in a little! The boys all tried (or said they were trying) not to look at what Santa brought them, but they were right there out in the open. They were good though, they didn't go grab their stuff, they just looked from afar!

Church was nice. Since it was Christmas we only had sacrament meeting. It was nice to start off the day with our church meeting. We were also able to say goodbye to our friends who were moving.

Once we got home, the boys raced upstairs to get back into their PJ's. We all got comfortable again and set ourselves up on the stairs for our traditional Christmas stairs shot. This tradition is a continuation of my families tradition growing up. It is fun to see all of my siblings still doing stairs shots with their families!

We enjoyed a nice relaxing morning and afternoon. We opened presents and just enjoyed being together. The stress and quarreling from earlier in the season were no longer with us! Another thing that made thisChristmas nice was the amount of gifts we all received. Every year Chad and I talked about needing/wanting to scale back. This year it actual happened and it was nice.

Trevor was our "Santa" this year. Each year one of the boys gets to wear the santa hat and hand out the presents to everyone. Then we take turns opening our gifts while everyone else looks on.

The boys all received something that they asked for so they were all happy. Chad and I were excited to see them receive their big gifts. As a side note, you may wonder about the maple leaf beanies we are wearing. They were a gift from Nana and Papa who are serving a mission in Canada.

Some of the gifts we were most excited to give were for Tanner, Kaden and Trevor. Tanner is finally able to go on Scout campouts and he loves camping gear, so we set him up! He was very excited to get his backpack and even more excited when he opened it up and found more inside. He was also very proud of the fact that he got a stove that is better than the one his dad has!

To find their gifts, we sent Kaden and Trevor on a scavenger hunt. Their gifts were big, so we had to hide them instead of wrap them.

It was fun to watch them run all over the house finding clues until they finally returned back to the room they started in to find their present in a closet. They were so excited when they opened the closet and found a new bike sitting inside!!

After the boys got their bikes, we were done opening presents - or so they thought. I had a special surprise for Chad. I had already given Chad a little gift so he didn't suspect anything. I was really sneaky and I set his present upstairs in the room we finished opening presents in. When we first went upstairs, I thought Chad spotted his present because he basically looked right at it, but to my surprise he didn't see it. So when everyone was done opening gifts I announced to Chad that there was one more gift for him on the other side of the room. I loved seeing the look of surprise and excitement on his face when he spotted his new bike! My pictures are kind of blurry, but I had to include them so I could remember his excitement!

Chad was pretty shocked. Most of the time Chad buys himself what he wants before I can go get it, but this time I actually did. Chad was amazed that I got him the bike, but he was equally amazed at how I was able to get the bike into our house without him knowing. He kept asking me, but I wouldn't tell. I liked being able to pull one over on him!!

The rest of our day was nice. We all enjoyed playing or checking out our new toys! At one point all of the boys were out in the garage playing with their stuff. Trevor got a Ripstik from Santa and he wanted to try it out. It was pretty tricky, but Trevor (as always) was determined to come off conquer and conquer he did! At first he couldn't figure out how to even stand up on the Ripstik, but then he watched the instructional video. About ten minutes later he was off and rolling. Check him out!

I'm sure we finished off the night by watching a Christmas movie, but I can't quite remember. I am still beaming from the wonderful day that we had!