Christmas Day

On Christmas Eve Toby and I pulled out all of the presents, stuffed stockings and then waited until the morning for the fun to begin.

Toby and I were both up before the girls (Crazy), but a little after 7 Elyse came down (fully dressed) with a huge grin on her face. The "rule" in our house is that we could open stockings even if everyone was not awake, so Elyse began to see what she got.

A pig timer that oinks when time is up:

A candy necklace: (Elyse makes this face when she is happy but embarrassed or thinks something is funny but not really- sort of like rolling her eyes)

My turn- (Toby hide this present from my parents in my stocking)

After Toby opened his, Elyse went to check on Anastasia and she was up! (FYI: She just wanted a band-aid on her head, she isn't hurt)

Fairy sisters!

I put underwear in Anastasia's stocking hoping she would get excited and want to wear them, but she had other thoughts:

After stocking we read our Advent book which tells the story of Jesus' birth.

Present Time!

The girls got Toby a Spiderman car and he was super happy!!!! Elyse was excited to see Toby open his gift because she gave it a lot of thought and thought he would really like it.

In the middle of opening  presents Anastasia needed some nourishment:

Toby's Secret Santa gave him an awesome gift:

Ralphie and Toby


The aftermath:
(Notice 2 unopened gifts- Anastasia got tired of opening things towards the end)

Time to play as we waited for breakfast

Toby cooked eggs, bacon and hashbrowns with ham- yum, yum!

The girl's favorite gifts:

More play time:

 The day was filled with a lot of playing, skyping with family, some movie watching and just fun family time. (3/4 of us didn't even get out of our pajamas)

For dinner Toby and I had planned on eating steak but we had been nibbling on Christmas treats all day we decided just to have what the girls requested: ravioli:

More presents:

We had a great Christmas day and continue to have fun with all of our Christmas presents!

Pre-Christmas Fun

A couple days before Christmas we went to look at lights. There is a neighborhood near our house that goes all out. Each cul-de-saq has a theme (i.e. Frosty the Snowman, Disney, the Christmas story, etc.) and usually have wood cut outs to go with that theme. I heard that if you move you are supposed to leave your decorations for the new owner so they can stay with the theme :)

We got there right as it got dark to avoid the crowds, but we were not the only ones with that idea:

Here are some of the houses. Some pictures aren't that great because I was trying to figure out which setting to use on my camera, but I wanted you to see the pictures anyway to get an idea of what the neighborhood was like.

Anastasia liked seeing Mater in front of some of the houses:

Some houses even decorated their mailboxes like this gingerbread house one:

I really liked this house:

This house best lights this year. it was on the Carousel Horse themed street.

We had a great time and the girls really enjoyed seeing all the lights. I think we'll have to go again next year :)

On Christmas Eve we had a pretty laid back day and then went to church in the evening.

This is one of Elyse's friends from church:

After church we headed over to the Smith's house for some tamales. I was so happy to spend the holiday with someone. I was getting a little sad not being around family, but this cheered me up.

The kids table:

The adults:

Haley had baked a birthday cake for Jesus. The kids enjoyed singing and then eating :)

After the festivities we went home and prepared for the next day :)