Christmas in February?

Anyone still interested in Christmas pictures?  I'm sorry I'm so horrible at updating this blog.  I just am - so deal with it.

We started out the Christmas festivities by spending Christmas Eve with the Hopewell side at Grandma and Grandpa's house. 

The boys were very excited to open up the presents.  They all got some Transformers and immediately had to open them and of course loose pieces and get them mixed up.  Oh well, I think we managed to leave with 2 Transformers back in everyone's possession. 

The girls are were also thrilled with their art sets and immediately set out to make us all some masterpieces. 

Cash and Lily also enjoyed their presents of a fire truck and baby doll accessories. 

Diane and Noah were the only ones there representing their family because poor little Covey was in the hospital and Uncle John was there with him.  Covey had a horrible Christmas and John and Diane spent most of their time trading off shifts at home with Noah and at the hospital with Covey.  It turned out to be complications from some medicines he was taking.  He is fine now and went home shortly afterwards.  Not a fun way to spend Christmas though.  We're just thankful that he is doing much better!!

Every year the Hopewell kids all do a gift exchange.  This year Bruce and Elisa had us.  Bruce is an amazing carpenter and made a chess/checkerboard set for us.  Ignore the first picture as it is just my husband hamming it up for the camera.  Shocking, I know. 

They did write us a sweet little letter and so we read that before we opened the present.  I'm married to a goofball, what can I say?

It is an AMAZING little box with a drawer to hold all the pieces and lots of inlay work.  Bruce sure is talented!  This present has been the most used present we have ever gotten from anyone I think.  Ryley has really taken a liking to playing chess and will even go downstairs to play chess all by himself.  He'll come and tell me after he's done playing.  "Mom, I was playing chess all by myself and I won!"  or "Mom, I was playing chess all by myself and I lost."  I worry about that child sometimes. 

Grandma and Grandpa also gave us a big framed family picture - which were is desperate need of.  Thanks so much Grandma and Grandpa!

After all the festivities we went home and quickly put out some cookies and milk for Santa, sprinkled the reindeer food outside for Rudolph and his pals, and got the kids into bed.  They swore they saw Santa's sleigh on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's house because it was so late so they were in a hurry to get to bed.  I have never seen my children move so fast and so excited to get into bed before.  I wish every night was Christmas Eve! 

The next morning Maddie was the only kid who woke up on her own.  She woke up Josh and I and then Josh went and woke up Cash and Ryley.  It wasn't even very early yet.  I guess they haven't figured that one out yet - thank goodness!  I can remember waking up at like 2 or 3 in the morning and get all my brothers and sisters up to play with what Santa brought us until 6 a.m. which was the earliest possible time we could go in and wake up Mom and Dad.  I even remember several times where we were up that early and playing as quietly as we could in the same room as Granny and Papa were trying to sleep.  I don't remember them ever waking up though - they were probably just being nice to us.  I doubt we were that quiet! 

Anyway. . . back to the present. 

Ryley was ecstatic to know that Santa had honored his request of a light saber.  Cash got his very own cowboy outfit - boots, hat, and guns/holster.

I think this picture of Maddie pretty much sums up her feelings of the day.

She had just opened her set of Disney Fairy chapter books here.  I love that she's this excited about getting books for Christmas.  Definitely my child.  I don't know how I missed the opportunity but I never did get a picture of her with her present from Santa on Christmas morning.  Here are a couple I took in the days after though. 

 

Notice the husband making a goofy face in the background again.  Gotta love that man.  She was so excited about her new pink guitar with flames on it.  Daddy has been giving her a few lessons.  She sets such high expectations for herself though and so she gets discouraged when she can't play it perfectly right away.  I hope she'll stick with it. 

I don't have any pictures of Josh and I on Christmas morning.  You're welcome.  I got Josh and couple of movies and things.  He got me the most awesomest present EVER!  A new external hard drive for my laptop - 1 terabyte!  My little portable one (160 GB) was almost full right before Christmas.  Hopefully 1,000 GB will last me through the year or possibly the rest of my life!  ;)

After Christmas at home we got cleaned up and headed for Granny and Pops' house.  The kids were very happy to learn that Santa had remembered to stop there for them too! 

Cowboy Cash and Ben both got these video game motorcycle things and they were BEYOND excited about it.  They were so funny to watch trying to pedal them.  They'll have it down in no time though.  Ryley also got some video games for the PS2 and luckily I brought our PS2 system over to their house so he could play them.  As soon as he opened the presents we never saw him again.  He was in the other room playing the whole time.  Maddie got a Jonas Brothers CD, a Hannah Montana shirt, and the High School Musical 3 CD.  She was in heaven too. 

This is my favorite thing about Christmas morning:

Mom's homemade waffles with strawberries and lots of whipped cream and Pops frying up lots of bacon.  Mmmmmmmmm. 

We were especially grateful to have Uncle Taylor home with us for this Christmas. 

Another goofball in the family.   I'm surrounded!!!!

Uncle Taylor left the next week for Utah to go back to BYU but we're so glad we got to spend some time with him before he left.  He was definitely a great help to Ryley that day with the video games.  He grew up on them too though.  I can remember him being younger than Ryley and playing Nintendo with Josh (my brother) and my Dad.  It really made me mad that he was so much better at it than me back then because I was like 15 and he was only 3-4.  Still kind of bothers me.  Let it go, Jeni.  Just let it go.

Later that day we went over to Bruce and Wendy's house to spend some more time with Josh's side of the family.  It was fun to have everyone packed in that house and laughing and just hanging out.  How blessed we are to have so much family close by!  Jessie and Svend and their family spent Christmas up in Seattle with the Bjorn side and we missed them a lot but I know that had fun up there and they were still with family.  Jordan was here though and so we almost had everyone!  We missed little Covey and John and Diane but there will be lots more Christmases to enjoy with them and we're so glad he's alright!

So that was our Christmas.  Thanks to everyone for the sweet gifts.  That's a  fun part of Christmas, but the best part, by far, is getting to spend so much time with everyone we love!