Christmas At Last

No we didn't have Christmas at the end of January but you know me!

As usual we had an AMAZING Christmas with our families!  The best part about it was spending time with the ones we love and we also happened to get spoiled a little bit to!

Our first Christmas was celebrating with the Ringel's. Gary's sisters come to Gary & Trish's house with all the kids and grand kids and we enjoy their company and a potluck with more food than all of us can eat! One day, I'm going to put each year of pictures side by side. It's amazing how fast these kiddos are growing! sniff sniff

 Santa even made his yearly stop at our house. Several of the girls would not take their eyes off the front window so we had to make an emergency call to Santa to make sure he didn't park his truck in front of the house!

 After the incident at the Legion, Sadie still wasn't to sure about Santa so she had mom come with her to get her present.

 Zakk on the other hand really likes this guy. He knows how to wrap someone around his little finger that's for sure...at least he knows how to try. I know he's thinking, "maybe if i'm nice to this man, he'll give me more presents!"

Aunt Puddy gave the girls an early present...journals with their initials on them. Good idea because that kept them busy until we celebrated our immediate family Christmas the next day. In the morning I was looking at Logan's and she had numbered all of her pages! Oh, I wish all I had to do was number my journal pages!

The next day we celebrated some more and much to the kiddos surprise, they got what they had been asking for all year (to which mom and dad always responded, "we you get a job and can pay for it"). But that's what grandma's and grandpa's are for!

They have certainly been a lifesaver when mom needs some quiet time to find her sanity but I do fear that Zakk has discovered his first addiction...besides diapers.

After celebrating we went to the Christmas Eve Candlelight Ceremony at Grandma Bertie's Church.  It's quite an amazing sight because they darken the church and everyone is holding their own personal candle.

Tyler has always been Grandma Bertie's girl so when we didn't get seats right next to Grandma Bertie, Tyler wanted to go sit with her. And despite my warnings to make sure her hair is away from the candle, all I could think about was Tyler's hair going up in flames. Of course it didn't happen...have I turned into my worrywart mom?  My kids are doomed!

After the service, we went to Aunt Becky & Uncle Donald's to celebrate with grandma's side of the family and then headed for home to await Santa's arrival.

 Rewind before we left for Alma...we always open a present on Christmas Eve and we didn't know how late we would be so we let the kids open a couple days earlier.  Then Kevin surprised them with Laser Tag!

On the way home from Alma, they opened their pjs to wear on Christmas Day!

Zakk got his turtle legos that he's been begging for since his birthday!

 Tyler got her I Funny book which just came out. She wanted it because it was the same author that wrote some of her other favorite books.

 The girls are hugging because they just opened their presents from each other. Tyler bought her some build-a-bear shoes and bunny hat. Logan bought Tyler a Reeses candy bar (which she loves).  It was so sweet, the girls actually spent their own money to buy each other presents and it was fun to watch them try to budget the little money they had between all of us!

After we opened presents on Christmas, we traveled to Platte City to have fun with my family!  For some crazy reason the kids wanted to open presents on the stairs. We made them come down and join us so we could watch!

 Tyler has been wanting a small black biker jacket so this is what she got from grandma and grandpa, along with her first pair of Miss Me jeans!

In this picture we were all laughing at Payton's expense because Marcus was showing everyone the video of him at Sidney's birthday party. There was this long trampoline that you run and jump off into a huge pit of foam. Well Payton must have gotten scared halfway through but that didn't stop him. He started crying but that didn't stop him either. So he just went on and jumped off into the foam pit crying the whole time...it was so funny!

So I get down to take a picture of Payton's new race track and Zakk takes that opportunity to get a horsey ride.

And thanks to grandma and grandpa, we will be going to Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun every day this summer because they bought us season tickets!!!!!

Another year that we have been blessed by so much love and happiness among our families. We will always remember!