Christmas time

 
Well, we made it. Another Christmas has come and gone, and we not only survived, we had a great time. We have celebrated the last 2 Christmases on a sunny beach in Hawaii, but fearing a Grandma mutiny, we decided to stay in snowy AK this year. It was nice to have a white Christmas with all the family, even though the kids admitted they would rather be laying on a beach after opening their presents. Here is how it all went down. We decided to head to Anchorage this year instead of having everyone and their dogs come down (our family just keeps getting bigger), so we celebrated Christmas Eve at home with just our family by eating a wonderful steak and King Crab dinner! It was awesome. Aaron cooked while I worked on making some Christmas treasure boxes (I got the idea from Oprah). The kids have expensive taste like their mother and loved the crab. After dinner we had yummy banana splits complete with caramel, Nutella chocolate, whipped cream, nuts and a cherry on top.

  

 

Here is Brady enjoying his delicious crab and Jolee devouring her corn on the cob. Don't you wish you had some of our banana splits?

Now on to the important stuff...the presents. The kids obeyed their mother and did not come out of their rooms until 8:00 a.m. Jolee was still asleep so the kids practiced their patience and waited until she woke up at 9:00 a.m. to tear into their stockings.  Am I a mean mom or what?

 

Check out Chloee and her stocking loot. The highlight was definitely the Cold Stone gift card.

 

Jaron loved the Wall-E blanket I made him.

 

Brady's big gift was a guitar. He has been wanting to take lessons for about 6 months now and he is really talented musically, so we thought he could give it a shot. Rock on little buddy!! Maybe he will be rich and famous someday.

 Jolee loved her Curious George Jack-in the-box. I think the other kids loved it just as much. The sat forever just winding and popping George up for Jolee to squeal at.

 We got Jaron this wrestling mask in Mexico. We walked past a vendor and saw this and said "That's Jaron!" He loved it!! He immediately ran into his room and grabbed his hulk gloves he got for his birthday and started the gun show! He is too funny.

 Do you see the look of shock and awe on her face? Isn't that what every parent wants for Christmas? Yes, we are cool parents and broke down and got Haylee a new Ipod. Now don't go think she is spoiled (well, she is) but we made her make do with my old Ipod with only 4 gig memory for the past year. She used it every day, all day long (except when in school of course). She LOVES her Ipod. She loves to put audio books on it and eventually the 4 gigs just wasn't cutting it. We upgraded her to a new, blue 16 gig nano. If it sounds like I am speaking a foreign language, I don't understand it either, but she was really happy with what we got her. The plus side is that Brady inherited her old Ipod which he is thrilled with. I don't know what we did to ourselves because we now have 2 kids with headphones stuck in their ears.

 

We headed up to my parents house Christmas day for dinner and presents. The boys loved their laser tag guns my parents got them. And the Wii Rockband II will be a huge hit from Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Ron.

 Chloee's favorite gift is her new digital camera. She is always trying to take our camera and sneak pictures on it, so this is a perfect gift for her. She has already taken over 150 pictures!

 

Haylee has her hands full of baby girls. She told me she loves them until they turn 2. Jolee and Abbi, you have 4 months left! Baby Kennedy will still be on the favorite list for a while longer. Grandma Lynn is showing off her blanket made with love by me.

 

Here are some cute pics of our little girls sharing some Christmas joy. We hope you all enjoyed time with your families celebrating our most priceless gift of all, the birth of our Savior. May His love be felt in your life all year long. Melekalikimaka everyone!! (That's Hawaiian for Merry Christmas in case you didn't know)