Christmas 2011 (aka our kids are spoiled)

I was really hoping my kids would have slept in on Christmas morning, but of course, they were up at 7am and begging to see what Santa brought them. I wanted nothing more than to sleep until 9am, would have been a nice gift for me, right?

The boys woke up Aubrey, she's not a morning person, can you tell? I think she would have slept in with me until 9am, but Jeremiah insisted we all get up for presents. Aubrey is definately my girl.

This is the "Oh my gosh we have presents!" face.

Aubrey has a whole collection of these big-eyed animals. Most of them have names and she rotates who she wants to take to bed each night.

Josette stayed with us for the holidays. She's not a morning person, either, and I'm pretty sure she went back to bed after all the presents were opened. We got her a little stocking with some presents so that she had some things to open, too.

Aubrey with her collection of Disney Princesses from Santa. Except for the fact that I removed all the shoes (because I knew she'd lose them anyway) she's kept them in great shape. She is in love with the Princesses, especially Ariel.

Hayden with the boys' gifts from Santa - some Legos and Skylanders for the Wii. It's a pretty fun game and we've been able to get a few additional characters for the game.

Roman with another gift from Santa - some Hexbugs and a little maze thingy for them.

Roman got a Millineum Falcon for Christmas (as did his cousins Jack and Bryce apparently) and loved it. He used his allowance to get a few more characters and plays with it a lot.

Aubrey finally got "The Little Mermaid" and she's already memorized some lines. She's slightly afraid of Ursula (she calls her "the witch") but she sings the songs a lot. You know that song Ariel sings when she's giving Ursula her voice? That's what Aubrey sings all the time. Very princess-y.

Hayden got a Thundercats car with a few of the characters. I thought he'd be more excited about it than he was, he doesn't play with it a ton, but they love the cartoon and I'm hoping he gets into a phase where he plays with it more.

Aubrey got her Princess Kitchen, too. She plays with it all the time and anything that she loses I can usually find in one of the kitchen cabinets or doors. Silly girl. She's wearing the Christmas dress that Nana Lafranca bought her.

Roman (in his Christmas sweater from Nana Lafranca) playing with the Hexbug set.

Hayden, who would much rather wear pajamas all day until just before we leave for church (just like his mom!) playing with the Legos.

We had a great Christmas. It was great having Josette in tow, the kids were spoiled with the extra attention, and I enjoyed the adult talk since usually the only people I talked to all day where the kids. The kids were spoiled, as usual, but so were we. Jeremiah got me some new black boots, some makeup, and some gift cards, and I got him some Blu-Rays, a new scripture set, and a few other things. I love holidays because we can put work on hold and spend time with our family, and it was extra special because Christmas landed on Sunday, so after all the presents were unwrapped and toys were scattered all over the bedrooms, we were able to go to church and celebrate the true reason for the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve Traditions

We are still working on our family traditions. We know that leprachauns will create havoc during the wee hours of March 17 and leave some treats as an apology for the kids, followed by green food and leprachaun traps. Valentine's Day means chocolate fondue. On their birthdays, each child gets doughnuts for breakfast and their choice of dinner, and presents aren't opened until daddy is home from work.

Christmas traditions, however, are a work in progress. This year, we went with some that we have been able to hold on to for year after year, and we also incorporated some new traditions that we hope to continue as well.

Christmas Eve Buffet:

This came from Jeremiah's family, who had a huge buffet every Christmas Eve and opened presents at midnight. I put my foot down at the midnight-present thingy, I'm not very good at staying up past 10pm, let alone midnight, and I'm still a fan of the Christmas morning festivities. However, I love our buffet.

This year we splurged at Whole Foods, mostly because we had a Groupon from there that was expiring. We start around 3pm with the buffet and also include a soup to help make it more of a meal. This year I made Our Best Bite's Black Bean Soup. It's one of my favorite soups to make and I usually have everything I need on hand.

The spread. Delish.

Summer sausage, proscuitto, and-my fave-salami. We put them on ciabatta rolls with different cheeses.

These are maripan stuffed dates with walnuts. No, I didn't try one. The kids liked them, but this is a tradition in Jeremiah's family. They have this thing for marzipan. Jeremiah even wanted a marzipan cake for our wedding. I had to say no, sorry.

Veggie platter, one of the kids' favorite parts. Seriously. They fought over the broccoli and bell peppers.

See those crackers on the left, the nutty ones? We had samples of it at Whole Foods, it's a hazelnut cranberry cracker, but a box was $8 and I was so sad! But the deli counter guy saw how much we liked them and he gave us a whole box "on the house," it was sweet. They are my fave now.

Roman was so ready for the buffet. We'd been working on it all day!

Opening presents:

We always let our kids open one present the night before. Is it surprising that they are always jammies?

Aren't they super cute as twinners?

Aubrey in her jammies, eating buffet food, watching the Smurfs Christmas movie.

Feeding the reindeer:

Both of the boys came home from school in December with sandwich bags full of Cheerios, oats, and glitter, aka reindeer food. Apparently they're supposed to sprinkle this stuff on the grounds on Christmas Eve to entice the reindeer to make a stop at our house (as if Santa wasn't going to stop by otherwise).

Buddy, Our Elf on the Shelf

We invited a new person into our home this Christmas, our own Elf of the Shelf, Buddy. Can you guess where the boys got the name for him?

Anyway, the idea is that Buddy stays at our house during the day, frozen (it's part of his agreement with Santa) and at night, when everyone is asleep, he flies back to the North Pole and reports to Santa how the kids have behaved, and then gets back into the house before the kids wake up, and always in a different spot. The kids LOVED waking up in the morning to find Buddy, and they tried harder to behave because they knew Buddy's eyes were always watching.

We even caught Buddy in the freezer eating our ice cream!