Christmas Celebrations

Christmas was so much fun! For the first time since we have been married we slept at our own house on Christmas eve. It was also special because it was our first Christmas in our new house. Our kids actually slept until 9:15. Scot and I had been awake for almost an hour wondering when the excitement of Christmas would finally hit our children. But it was really nice to get some sleep, instead of getting up at the crack of dawn. We celebrated at home and then went to visit family. It was a great day of food, family, presents, and relaxing. Then we even came home and got our kids to bed early. I of course took tons of pictures, but rather than subjecting you to all of them, I picked some of my favorites.
Lucy loved her stocking! She loved pulling everything out and exploring what was inside. Opening presents wasn't nearly as exciting for her. We pretty much opened them all for her, then she got excited when she saw what was inside. And then she wanted everything opened immediately.
Emma was very excited to get Harry Potter 5 and of course High School Musical 2 on dvd.
Ben and his new puppy, who he named Gigantor. It is so funny how he picks all these new names for his puppies. We also had Reeberto, and Santa Puppy join the puppy family this Christmas.

This wasn't Christmas day, but since Santa visited our house, I thought it was appropriate. All these years I have been paying the expensive prices to get the pictures from the mall. But this year I learned that they let you take your own picture. I figured it was worth saving the $20 and I ended up with a great picture, better than they would have taken anyway.
My dad dissapeared half way through the evening. No one knew where he had gone. When we found him, we thought it would be festive to dress him up. He slept through the whole thing.
Every year my mom gets us all pajamas for Christmas Eve. She has told me that she has penguin pajamas for me for the next ten years, so I better not change sizes. This year she found matching penguin pajamas for my kids. Aren't they the cutest, and the kids are cute too.
Santa brought our kids backpacks full of stuff to entertain them in and on our way to Hawaii. Lucy loved emptying hers.
Since our kids slept so late I thought I should take some pictures to wake them up. It didn't work, but it did make me wonder how he sleeps this way.

It's hard to believe that after all the work that goes into this holiday it is over so quickly! Oh well we'll do it again in 12 months.