363 more days and counting.

Every year I'm amazed at how quickly Christmas day goes by- after all the hard work that is put into it! I shopped, wrapped, baked, cooked, cleaned, organized and decorated for hours upon hours, and it was over in 3 hours. But it was a magical, exciting and perfect 3 hours!

We kicked off by going out to dinner at Bucca di Beppo with Aaron's parents on Christmas Eve. They live in the Bay Area and drove down on Saturday to spend the week with us. After dinner we came back and opened up Christmas PJ's, set out snacks for the reindeer and Santa, read The Night Before Christmas and the kids opened up our family ornament for 2007 and then their Christmas book. This year they got Merry Christmas Curious George! We tucked them into bed at 8 pm and read them the Bible story out of Luke 2. We had to be really sneaky about keeping the "santa gifts" that were downstairs, hidden. Our upstairs hallway looks directly into our family room and we didn't want to have any accidents so Aaron secured their door with an alarm. It did the trick and we had no peekers!

The kids got up at a decent hour- 7am and they waited in bed with Aaron while I went downstairs to check to see if Santa had come. (aka- turn on lights, Christmas music, get out camera's etc.) Indeed he had come and the kids raced downstairs to see! The look on their little faces was the best part of the whole day- priceless! We played with Santa gifts for awhile and then had homemade cinnamon rolls and fruit for breakfast and then jumped into presents and stockings. It was all over by 10 am. We then hurried to get things straightened up, shower and head down to my parents house. Aaron's sister, her husband and their 3 kids met us there. We opened presents to/from my parents and had a most delicious dinner. We had about 40 people there- great g-parents, mine and Aaron's parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a really great afternoon and we loved being with all our family. We finally got into the car to head home at about 8:00 and I think all the kids were asleep before we got on the freeway. Aaron's parents and sister and family came back with us and stayed the next 2 nights. They left this morning.


Waiting in bed- hurry up , Mom!
The boys big gifts from Santa.

Addie was a little in awe of everything- although she jumped right in and got the hang of it very quickly!

More Christmas craziness at Grammy and Grandpa's house.
Grammy (my mom) and Jake opening up MORE presents!
Addie with her favorite toy- a stroller for her baby.
As much as I love Christmas, I am relieved that it's over. It's so much fun and definitely my favorite time of the year- but truth be told, I also really enjoy putting everything away, cleaning up, playing with the kids and all their new toys that and looking forward to the New Year. I love the feel of the fresh start and the best part is that I also get to look forward to our new baby! Now that Christmas is over I am going to start getting ready for him and I'm so excited for that. It's crazy that the little guy will be here in less than 15 weeks! I know with 3 birthdays and lots of preparations for the baby, that day will be here before I know it. Next big event. . . the youth are coming over tomorrow night after the New Years Eve dance for their annual "waffle breakfast" at midnight. It's a little tradition Aaron started since he's been YM President. Better get cooking- again!