Christmas 2010

Oh... the anticipation!

SO EXCITED!

C's face is priceless!

He's asking why we enter as youngest to oldest. :)

yay... for harry potter wands!

Such handsome young men

I made all the kids these cinch bags with their names on them. They work great for holding their PJ's and such for G'ma sleepovers.

G'ma and Papa C got the girls this awesome Dora Dollhouse, completely decked out with LOTS of dolls. We were having a hard time keeping A2 from just ripping through all her presents at once. So I suggested the girls open the dollhouse, even though the rest of us were still looking through Santa stuff, just to get A2 distracted from her presents. WOW! That worked great! We literally had to talk her into opening the rest of her presents after that. She was in HEAVEN! What's even more hilarious is that ALL the kids played with this dollhouse the rest of the morning. :)

A2 got a Dora stable and car to go with the dollhouse. She opened the box and didn't even take the time to remove the stuff before playing with it. She was almost in the box head first trying to play with it all.

Boys got some really fun walkie talkies. They are real "grown-up" ones. They have been talking lots of taking them camping and hiking. It just needs to warm up so we can go.

Cheeto is awesome! He got me some really soft, cozy, nice, WARM sheets. I suppose he benefits from them too. ;) I have been freezing all night. He had them in the washer before I could even really see what brand or what the fabric was. I love them.

I made the boys "invisibility cloaks" from Harry Potter. It's shiny on one side so you can't see through it, yet from the other side you can see through it great. K opened his first and saw the fabric and said, "Awesome, a shiny tuxedo!" LOL!

All excited to watch Daddy open the kids present.

This year a friend of mine shared a little saying they stick to at Christmas to help them from over doing it.

Something you want, something you need

Something to wear, something to read.
Nola did awesome with the something to READ. All the kids LOVED their books.
A2, shockingly, got a Dora book and Papa is trying to read it to her (in Spanish of course!)

C got big into Harry Potter this year!
Fancy Nancy was Sassy's favorite series this year.

Not quite as thrilled with the baby doll after she got a paper cut opening the box.

Still asking for the HESS trucks after all these years.

Our sweet K is so creative and thoughtful.

He made Lettie this ring out of paper and tape and wrapped it up all by himself for her.

A friend of Lettie's was giving away a UNC coat earlier this fall. We had Marcos and Haley for Christmas. I decided to keep the coat and wrap it up as a gag gift for Marcos. I had made them a scrapbook of their wedding for their real gift and gave it to them earlier in the week since Haley was going to spend Christmas with her family.
Marcos unwrapped and saw the color of the coat through the crack in the box.
He said, "I'm not liking the color of this!"

He is always such a good sport. It seems like every year someone always gives him a gag gift.

I was surprised he even put it on to model it. :) LOL!
It made for a good laugh for everyone.

About 4pm A2 seriously could not go on. Her battery DIED!

No matter how many times I tried moving her to get her to stay awake she wouldn't.

Still no budging.
That's when I decided to take a quick family picture in front of the tree all decked out in our PJs.
Then... go 'outside' in the snow. I figured the snow would really wake her up.
(I did not want her taking a nap so late in the day!)

Family Picture take 1
Family picture take 2

It snowed here on Christmas for the first time since the 1960's. It truly made for a magical Christmas. :) I had to take pictures of us out in it.

Boys are so silly!

Running with joy that mom didn't make her put a coat on! We fight every time we ask her to put a jacket on. She was thrilled to run through the snow jacket-free. But it wasn't surprising that she even argued about not wearing a jacket. "MOM! I'm going to freeze!"
UGH... I can never win!

Ok... I'll stand in the snow mom.

Ah.... IT TOLD!!!!
:)
I had one more gift for Cheeto.
Can you tell he's excited!?!?!

I have a friend that is an amazing craftsmen. He built this box for me from scratch.
It's gorgeous! Cheeto and I have "Why I love you" books we write in. I thought this box would be a good place to keep them. Up until now they get lost in the stack of books on my nightstand, kicked around Cheeto's car, or looked at by the kids. This will be our place to keep them. :)