Christmas

Christmas morning is always my favorite. I love to watch the kids eyes light up as they come down to see what Santa has brought for them. This was Emma's first year of understanding the whole concept of Santa coming and bringing the things you ask for. As the kids came down the stairs we had our usual entourage of family here to celebrate Christmas morning with us. Role call: Grandma and Grandpa Dowling, Bama and Papa, Aunt Staci and boyfriend Aaron, Chip, Marc and Adriana, Dave, Mike(dad) and mom. Quite the fan club for my kids. I often wonder if they know that this big of an audience is not normal for all kids.


Emma came down first and was like a deer in headlights when she saw everyone waiting anxiously for her reaction to her gifts. I had to help her go through everything until she got through her shy moment. I asked all of the kids what their favorite present was:


Emma: cradle(that daddy decorated for her) and her bathtub baby






Emma presents included the dollhouse, eyeballs, teethe and robot that she asked Santa for. When Grandma Kaye came over Emma showed her all of the presents that Santa had brought. She told Grandma that she didn't understand why Santa had brought her all this "stuff" in her stocking that she didn't even ask him for. I guess she only expects to get what she asks for and nothing more. When you know what you want why would you want anything else?








Sam: "Everything" , although he focused most of his time and energy on figuring out his rc helicopter. He even talked Dave into trying to launch it from his head.





Sam was more excited about me opening my tripod than he was about most of his gifts. I did cry when I opened the calendar he made me at school...it wasn't the calendar but the sweet letter that was attached to it for Mike and I..."I love you guys and appreciate everything you do for me. Thank you for everything and I love you. I love you! I love you!!! Mom you are always happy and cheerful. Mike you stink most if the time and you make me happy. Merry Christmas and happy Hanuka." Wouldn't that make you laugh and crying all in the same breath?



Tyler: new phone and camera...hopefully he will take pictures of someone other than himself




Tyler is at that point in which he doesn't get a lot of gifts because he wants all of the large ticket items. He got a lot of clothes(because he is growing so fast!) He is very excited about his new phone with a full keyboard for texting. I had his phone charging on Christmas Eve in my room so that he could use it on Christmas. When we were getting ready to go to dinner that night his phone kept going off saying "you've got a message". The first time I heard it I was with Tyler in my room and I just froze. He just looked at me and said someone's got a message. Thankfully he did not catch on that it was not my phone. I thought I was going to have a heart attack or pass out at the very least! ***Note to self...turn off the volume on the phone***




It was so much fun having everyone here to open presents! Dave generously opened all of the kids toys and helped them remove all of the kid proof wrapping. After all the presents were opened we ate biscuits and gravy that my mom and dad made and ate cinnamon rolls that Grandma brought. All of it was so yummy!




Tom and Kaye stopped by after everyone else had cleared out. They opened a few presents with us and played with the kids for a while. Tom took a little cat nap, obviously all of the hustle and bustle of Christmas had worn him out.

Later in the day we went to Tom and Kaye's for dinner. It is always fun for the cousins to get to see each other for a few hours on Christmas and share the excitement of their presents with

each other. Brian(Mike's brother) surprised Tom with tickets to the Sugar Bowl that the Utes will be playing in on January 2nd. It was so awesome to watch his face and as Mike had predicted all he could say was "How am I going to get there?" Of course Brian had everything taken care of and they were both crying at the surprise and excitement of it all! We didn't see Tom for the next half an hour. He went directly to his office to scan the tickets to hang a copy on his fridge in pride.



Later, after half the family had gone home Emma talked her dad in to pulling out her microphone that she got for Christmas and there began the Christmas concert of Emma, Sara and Zane. It was so fun because all of the adults started singing Christmas carols too. If it weren't for the kids I think the fun little traditions like caroling would be lost. Take a look at the vocal stylings of the Zane, Sara and Emma band....

What a great day all together. We are blessed with such great kids and family! I am truly grateful for everyone in our lives!!!

Traditions

What a fun night we had on Christmas Eve. We went to my dad's annual Prime Rib dinner. For anyone that knows my dad, he is an excellent cook and this is his highlight of the year. He cooks a full Prime Rib with all of the trimmings for our family. He has been doing making this dinner for 32 years and he says this is his last...we'll have to see if that's true.

This year we were lucky to have my grandparents be part of our celebrations. It has been quite a few years since they were with us on Christmas. It was nice to have 4 generations together on Christmas.

Staci's boyfriend Aaron also joined us (nothing like baptism by fire having his first meet and greet with the family on Christmas Eve.) I think he passed with flying colors!

After we had dinner at mom and dad's we went to Aunt Roseann's annual Christmas Eve open house. It's something we look forward to each year. It's a time when we get to see and visit with a lot of Mike's family we only see once per year.

We had big plans to get done with all of our running around early so we could come home and bake cookies for Santa and watch a family movie. We didn't leave Roseann's until around 9:00 and Emma was out like a light in about 5 minutes. Sam and I decided to compromise and set out cream puffs from the freezer rather than make cookies. Sam said he gets a lot of cookies so he would probably like cream puffs but to only put out 4 since he eats so many cookies. He also thought I should make Santa some tea instead of milk because he has to drink a lot of milk on Christmas Eve....so chamomile tea it was. It was a late night for Mike and I, we stayed up watching movies and hanging out with Dave(Mike's borther) since he is moving to California. We are going to miss his so much. He is the life of every family gathering and just fun to hang out with!

I'm so excited!

It's Christmas Eve and I am so excited....not for the presents that I am going to receive but for the look on everyone's faces when they open their gifts. It is so fun to watch the kids and I can't wait! I was looking around my house last night and realized how much I have to be thankful for. We finished the addition on our house last spring and it is everything I had imagined. We have enough room for our tree without having to banish half of our furniture to the basement. I also love our mantel and gas fireplace so that with the flip of a switch we can turn the fire on or off...no messy logs and trying to use boy scout techniques to get the fire going! This has become the central gathering place for our family and I love it.

I love decorating for Christmas (who am I kidding, any chance to decorate and I'm all over it!) I changed the theme of my Christmas tree this year to snowflakes from decorations I bought on clearance after Christmas last year. I love how it turned out! I wrapped all of the presents in red and white polka dot paper or blue snowflake paper. I've never done that before bot I thought it would be fun for a change. Mike finally wrapped all of his presents last night and apparently he didn't get the memo about my uniform picturesque wrapping so he went with some other wrapping paper I had down stairs. He said he didn't want to use the same wrapping paper so then he didn't have to worry about tags and he would know which presents were mine. Definitely a man's way of thinking!

Our new mantel hold our nativity scene perfectly, I always felt like I had to cram it somewhere before because I had no space and now it is where everyone can see. I decided not to remove our family pictures from the mantel so I just rearranged them around the nativity. It looks like we are all a part of the nativity....kind of cheesy but I like the idea!

Emma is very excited and I think Sammy is too. Sammy wished me a Merry day before Christmas when I woke up this morning. Emma announced that Santa was coming tonight. "I AM SO EXCITED" she informed me. Tyler has a cold which is his luck since he never gets sick.

"I'm proud of myself"

What an awesome day for Sam. I don't think I could be more proud of him. He was honored, as Student of the Month, yesterday at school. Sam's teacher (Mrs. Lambert) had called me last week and told me that she nominated him because he is doing so well and he is such a pleasure to have in class. She said I could tell him or keep it a surprise. I chose to keep it a surprise because Sammy needs a few surprises in his life. It was funny when Marc and I arrived at the school; Sam had just been called to the office to announce him as student of the month. We came in the doors of the school and Sam looks at us, does not question why we are there, and proudly announces to us that he is student of the month. It made me laugh that he did not question why his dad, Mike and I were at his school and that he thought it was a coincidence that we arrived at the exact time he was to receive his award. I got him a new BYU (his favorite college team) sweat shirt as a reward. He was beaming with pride. Later in the day, I told Sam that I was proud of him and he responded with, "I'm proud of myself".

I believe in Santa

We had our annual family Christmas party last night. It is something the kids look forward to every year. They get to see all of their cousins and extended family and of course the highlight is Santa. This year they got to play Rock Band on the projector screen, which all of the boys loved!!! Aunt Tiffany was so nice and she got out the tumbling mats and let all of the little kids jump around and do summer salts. Emma was really scared when Santa first arrived but quickly warmed up to the idea of telling him what she wants (eyeballs, teeth, a robot and a dollhouse...nothing like knowing what you want!) After everyone had their turn on Santa's lap (Grandpa gave calendars to all the adults to ensure they had a turn on Santa's lap too), Sam was upset because he knew I had designed the calendars and he didn't understand how they got into Santa's sack of presents. I reassured him that Grandpa had been the one to put them into Santa's sack as a joke on all of the parents. He seems to be satisfied with the explanation and thankfully his faith is Santa is restored. I feel like kid's faith in Santa is the reason the Christmas holiday is so fun! The way their faces light up when they look at Santa makes all the craziness of the holidays worth it. I wish we could all have the much honest and pure excitement as we grow older.