Christmas morning is the only morning I like to wake up right when the kids come in my room.  Any other day I need at least 20 more minutes to get me going for the day.  Zoe has always been our early riser and Zane sleeps until about 8:00am every day (sometimes later).  Christmas morning was no exception to the norm.  Zoe was up before the sun and sorted through her stocking before anybody even knew she was awake.  She asked permission the night before, “If I get up too early can I look at my stocking?”  I told her that as long as it was after six am, she could wake us up.  Apparently, she slept past six but still wanted to get to her stocking first thing!  We ended up waking Zane to get the party started.  The kids were so excited about everything.  Zoe got a jewelry holder, a purse, a movie and a stocking full of stuff and Zane got a train, a ghost ship (just as he asked) and a stocking full of stuff.

side note: parenting at Christmas time is a tough deal.  You want to get your kids things they want but you hate to spend so much money.  Zoe asked for a DS but didn’t even know what it was.  She is not the gaming type and I knew it would become an ornament on her shelf after about 3 days.  She wasn’t disappointed with her gifts but still that was a tough decision.  We tell the kids that Santa has many kids to take care of and he usually can only bring maybe 2 gifts per child and then some stuff for your stocking.  There are a million different ways to do the gifts/stocking situation and that’s just our way.  We then wrap a few gifts from “mom and dad” and put those under the tree.  We realized this year that Santa can bring ONE gift, mom and dad can give ONE gift and they would still have plenty from family members.  Oh the learning process of a parent. 

After getting our house back in order (somewhat) we had Papa and Grandma Deb over for Christmas brunch and it was delicious.  Tim totally took over the kitchen duties (made a southwestern quiche) while I somehow got involved in cleaning out closets and making room for new stuff.  I literally did not step into the kitchen until it was time to eat.  AWESOME!  The only picture I took of all of them was with Deb’s camera so I don’t have the picture but I did get this…

Our afternoon was spent with more organization (unfortunately, it didn’t include any closets that are in desperate need of some help… it only included the ones that my kids get in to) and preparation for the Christmas dinner.  We had family over for dinner and fried a turkey. 

While Tim was once again manning the meal (watching the turkey fry and keeping everybody safe from a fired pot of hot oil, he called his family to wish them a Merry Christmas.

When all the kids arrive, the noise level rises and the chaos begins…  It wouldn’t be a family party without chaos.  Brynn kept taking Paisley’s shopping cart and Paisley kept taking Brynn’s purse with make-up.  I suppose it was a fair trade!

It was a very Merry Christmas.  We love our friends and family.  We are very grateful for our many blessings.  Most of all, I am very grateful to be done looking at all the pictures from this week.  Phew, all caught up and time to get behind again.