A White Christmas

It snowed on Christmas morning and now Aidan thinks that every time it snows it is Christmas again. I wish, buddy, I wish.

Aidan loved making snow balls!

Reese was having trouble adjusting to her new snow pants.

Our white Christmas was amazing. Natalie and her family arrived the day before Christmas Eve. Diana and I had been baking cookies and working on our menu for Xmas Eve and Christmas day in the weeks before the big day. We set out the stockings during the middle of the day on Christmas Eve and it was nearly impossible to keep the kids from opening the presents. The worst kid of all was my Father-in-Law. He always ends up giving the presents out early every year so I was very impressed that he showed some restraint this year, he did not refrain from asking every hour or so if it was time to open the presents yet.

My mother in law lost all of the stockings this year (or so she thought), so Natalie and I had to use our family's stocking and I purchase two Dollar Store stockings for my father-in-law and mother-in-law. Diana and I searched all over the house for her stockings, but they were never found, until...3 days before Christmas, Natalie found them in her Christmas decor at her house in Tennessee. Diana had also lost them the year before, so Natalie took them last year so that they would not get lost. Natalie and I did not tell Diana that the missing stocking were recovered, we just put them in a box and wrapped them up as a present. Yes, we get our kicks out of making fun of each other.

The stocking were sitting in front of the chimney with care, who could possibly hang them with all of that stuff in them?
After dinner, we opened the stockings. We tried the "everyone open one gift and we'll go around the room," but with the little ones, that just does not work. Eventually we just had paper flying everywhere. Levi almost threw away a present because we literally had tons of ripped wrapping paper to the point that you could no longer see the floor. We got lip gloss, hand sanitizer, puzzles, socks, dental floss, toys, Snuggies, and all of the older boys got a pair of racy panties. We all had a good laugh and then we had dessert.

Before bed we put out cookies for Santa and put a plate of our reindeer food on the porch. We made the reindeer food (dry oatmeal mixed with glitter) at our storytime class and it was in a ziplock. I wasn't exactly sure how to display it, but was certain that it should be placed outside, after all, the reindeer don't come in the house, right? I was raised Jewish, so I don't know these things, give me break. As for Santa's plate of cookies, I didn't take into account that "Santa" has been eating a lot of cookies for the past few days and ate a big meal and therefore probably would not eat all of the cookies we left out for him. Rookie mistake.

Santa couldn't finish all of the cookies, he (ahem, she) was too full.

Sugar overload! Everything was so delicious!

I put the kids to bed and went upstairs to get rid of the reindeer food. By the time I opened the door, the plate was gone and we had oatmeal and glitter all over the front porch. Another rookie mistake, but at least the stuff was gone and there was a little evidence to show to the kids in the morning.


Checking the front porch to see if the reindeer ate the food.

Christmas morning was amazing. The tree was busting full of presents and the kids were chomping at the bit to open them. Once again we had wrapping paper flying everywhere and we really enjoyed seeing their faces when the opened everything. Because Aidan "asked Santa" for so many things this year, I waited in pure excitement to see how he would react to receiving the requested items. He was excited for about a minute and then moved on to the next box. Oh well.

Levi, Aidan, Guy and Reese in front of the tree before the mayhem began.

Reese and all her new princess stuff.

Reese's Cinderella gown. We RSVP'd to a Princess Tea in February, so now we have our outfit!

Of all the presents, this dollar store special was Aidan's favorite, figures.

Pappy's new Snuggie. I'm convinced that he is the only person in the free world that actually wants a Snuggie, everyone else probably received them as a joke. I could have used one the other day, but I would never admit it.

Hungry for a little sushi? Aidan's gift from Natalie & Tim. They love to eat sushi and really enjoy playing with this set. Ironic that their aunt from the country bought it for him.


Reese and Aidan all smiles after tons of presents and tons of sugar cookies.

Santa brought us everything we wanted including Visa gift cards and cash to put towards our family trip to New York! We just need to save a little more money and we'll be on our way to the BIG APPLE! I can almost taste a street hot pretzel and Poland Spring Water.

Merry Christmas to all...