Christmas 2009!

To see more pictures, click HERE.

Where to start...we had such a busy, fun, awesome Christmas here.

Brian's sister, Nicole, and her family were in town from California so we all spent almost every night together during the week of Christmas. On Wednesday, Santa paid us a visit at Nana and Papa's and he even brought each of the kids a small gift...pre-Christmas spoiler! :) They all sat on his lap and told the big man what they wanted. It was really cute- the kids were so excited...except for Lauren, who gave her sweet little lungs a nice workout after being placed on Santa's knee.

I worked with the girls a little during the week to learn an easy (silly) dance to Feliz Navidad and Jingle Bells, which they wanted to perform for everyone that night so we sort of had an impromptu talent show before the night ended. It was really cute and the girls loved having all of the attention for a minute. Later, Brian and I (but mostly Brian!) spent 5 1/2 hours putting together the Ikea furniture we got for the girls craft room, their gift from Santa (see last picture).

On Christmas Eve we woke up to snow! It was so exciting because that just doesn't happen here. It was magical- a real "white Christmas". That night, the cousins re-enacted the Nativity story and sang some Christmas songs and then each of them received a pair of new pajamas for Christmas. We came back to our home later and the girls decorated sugar cookies for Santa, watched a Christmas movie, and ate popcorn and cookies. They stayed up way too late! Brian and I then wrapped their gifts and set everything up for the next morning. The kids woke up around 7:30 AM and were so excited to see if Santa had come. We took them upstairs first after leaving a note downstairs explaining that their gift was too big to fit under the tree (from Santa, of course!). They didn't really get it at first...Kate saw the craft room and said "Oh, my gosh its a new...kitchen?". So funny. Afterwards, they were so excited to open their presents...every gift they opened, they would say, "Its just what I wanted". Halfway through the gifts, they got all decked out in their snow gear and went outside to play in the snow. The all-time favorite gift might be their LeapFrog train (which was given to Lauren, mind you) which they spend no less than 6 of their waking hours on during the day. Lauren kept getting into the kids paint and biting/chewing/licking it- hence the green paint all over her face in the picture. Brian and I laughed so hard when we saw her covered in paint because she was acting all nonchalant and had no idea that she had been goobed. We ate dinner as a big family that night at the Crofts.

What a perfect Christmas...why can't it just last longer?? :)