Christmas 2008!

Christmas was nice this year... we went to church for the candle light service on Christmas Eve... which Lydia became miss bah humbug during (really hard to smile when you're gritting your teeth and ringing your hands). We still haven't figured out why she was so angry... (she even ripped her new dress and kept saying loudly 'this isn't a Christmas song!' (guess if its not sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks then it doesn't count) and then held her hands over her ears when people read or were speaking) As soon as we lit the candles she became quiet... and then when the service was done it was as if the demon left and we had sweet Lydia back. That was a long hour! Needless to say, only the boys got to open a Christmas gift early when we returned home. It was a good lesson for Lydia to learn... you cant turn on the charm to erase bad behavior... even on Dad! Maybe next year we'll have the chance to take a nice picture with everyone dressed up!

Christmas brought lots of gifts for the kids and they are still playing with them today... it's going to take a few days for them to open everything and play with them.

Lydia was very happy that Santa did show! Lydia now has a doll house (as big as her) with furniture and a couple of dolls and horses. She is starting to collect the 'Only hearts doll's' from Target.

Ty now has a train table with tracks, trains, and a whole city worth of characters as well as Lego's and playmobile Roman warriors. He is also a fan of 'Cars' and seems to always have one in a pocket for play.

Cal also has some Roman warriors and has become quite the warrior himself with the Nerf Long Shot (look it up... it's as big as him!). He also has Lego's but his are of some model cars and aircraft which he has become very skilled at building with the help of the big directions booklet. He also has a huge track to race marbles on (which he is impatiently waiting for Chris to complete building on... apparently we should have gotten Chris his own!). Cal is also armed with a camera so now we all have to watch what we're doing as he can be very stealthy!

Lots of books, musical instruments, puzzles and games have been added to the dear toy room... thank you Alvarado's for the monetary gifts... the kids got mp3 players (music/video/photo and voice recording/ebook features) on sale for 80% off! Charlene is so happy to have her Ipod back!

The morning was a success (esp since the kids slept in until 9:30 am!!!!) and each kid took turns picking a present for someone else to open while waiting for one to be passed to them. After 2 hours Chris started to pass them out in groups so we could get going! Now we are slowly recuperating from another long and lazy afternoon! After opening presents we headed down to the family room and took a look at what was left in our stockings! Our mini tree sat on top of my Grandma's old sewing box. The tree this year had three ornaments that the kids made at our neighbors house... small painted hand prints decorated into snowmen! Probably my favorite gift!

Here are two videos featuring Ty... he was just so impressed with all of the gift boxes... there were so many!