Catching up continues...Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning was very relaxing! We had absolutely nowhere that we HAD to be. Once all of the kids were up they emptied their stockings. Brenna decided to sleep in this morning so the other two were getting a little impatient waiting but I refused to wake anybody up. We had nowhere to go so we had no set time frame.

 

 

Once everyone had breakfast and were dressed, we headed for the living room to open gifts. This year's gifts contained mainly clothing but there were a few fun things in the midst. Ethan is still at the age that I can find cheap toys. The girls on the other hand, they have hit the age where their "toys" are not so cheap. Oh my. We had to have a little chat before starting..."Ethan has more gifts to open but we promise we spent the exact same about of money on each of you." The girls accepted the news well. I'm sure the time will come when it will be one gift under the tree for each of them. The more advanced the electronics get the more expensive the gifts get!

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I had worked for a friend for a very big catering job they had. Jason and I decided that we would take a little bit of that to do Christmas for each other. The kids were so upset earlier when we told them that Mom and Dad didn't need anything and we were okay with no gifts. Imagine how excited they were when they found out we were exchanging gifts. Alyssa had gone with Jason while he shopped for me and I took Brenna with me. They loved being a part of this!

I loved the deals that I found to be able to really surprise Jason with some great gifts...Huskies hat and sweatshirt, a capo for his guitar, and Maden '10 for the Wii. I thought I "out did" him for sure...we get a little competitive when it comes to gift giving...who can surprise the other one the most. Well, this year...HE WON! He totally disguised my gift and I was shocked when I opened my very heavy, squishy box to find an envelope letting me know that I was getting a new computer program for scrapbooking. He couldn't actually purchase it because once you purchase it, it is a downloadable program and I'm constantly on the laptop so I would have discovered it early. I have an AMAZING husband!!

At about 1:30 we decided that we would head over to Grandma Groen's to see what was happening there. We knew Mom and Duane were there with a couple of my aunts and uncles for lunch with Grandma. We spent a couple of hours there just hanging out and then came back home to play with more of our Christmas toys!!

I think this was one of the best Christmas' ever! We had time to just enjoy each other, spend quality time at home together, and didn't have to rush off any where. We hope that you had an amazing Christmas as well...celebrating the real reason for Christmas...JESUS!