Merry Christmas

This Christmas was a HUGE success!  i won't go into how bad derek and i and santa did in the past... let's just say that one of katelyn's famous quotes of 2010 was, "i never even used what i got for christmas last year."  part of the reason is our kids asked for ridiculous things, like laptops and flatscreen tvs.  this year was so much more do-able!!!

 Christmas Eve...  we stayed in Page and spent the night with our friends the Mallavias and the Buntings.  We ate some good food, the guys played ping-pong...

 and the moms helped the kids do some crafts!

 Katelyn Grace

 Alexis Rae

 Samantha Claire

 Annie Helen

We had the kids act out the Nativity.  it was the first time we ever did that on Christmas Eve, and i really liked it.  i think we may have to add that to our lists of traditions.

Trevor and Samantha as Joseph and Mary.

Katelyn and Natalie as the shepards.

 Annie and Alexis were the Wise Men.

 Aftert the Nativity we open Christmas Eve pjs.  sleeping that night was a little insane.  in our house the master bedroom is upstairs and the rest of the rooms are downstairs.  so we put up an airbed and had all the girls sleep in our room so they couldn't sneak and see what Santa brought before waking us up!  it made for a pretty crappy night's sleep honestly!  because of being pregnant i'm up 5 times a night and every time lex would wake up and cry so the other girls would wake up.   she ended up in our bed which is never good!!!  at 5:30am i was done trying to sleep and it was all i could do to just lay there and let the kids (and derek) sleep!! finally around 7 or 7:30 the big girls woke up!

Christmas Morning!!  Katie and Ann were happy to be awake...  Sam and Lex were a little annoyed about the whole situation!!

(sam was NOT excited to be awake, and it took her about 2 hours to really wake up... she was comatose pretty much the whole time she opened her presents too!!!)

 Lexi just asked for candy... so santa brought her something he thought she might like.

 annie asked for a  REAL gumball machine that her sisters would have to pay a quart to get a gumball.  quite the entrepreneur!!

 grandma and grandpa o. gave the girls pillow pets... i'm surprised all the windows didn't shatter from their high pitched screams when they opened them!!

i don't need to explain how happy katie was to get eclipse in her stocking!

another big highlight was the 3 bigger girls all got rollerblades.  now... isn't that the most reasonable thing a kid could ask for?!?!?  they have already put about 200 miles on them!  grandma and grandpa sullivan gave the 2 big girls church clothes which they were ecstatic about (they looked homeless at church up to that point)!  Samantha got a stash of puzzles which have been a lifesaver.

It was a great Christmas.  I love being home and just doing our own thing.  And... most importantly i love remembering the birth of the Savior.  It is a great time of year!