Christmas

This is a Christmas post and as usual, is an explosion of pictures.

We had a really nice Christmas this year. It was really busy but it was full of family and that makes it so much fun. We spent Christmas Eve at my sister's house with my parents and 2 of my brothers and that was a blast, it was a perfect night. Then Santa came and daddy was so excited that he finally slept in the hall so the kids wouldn't wake up and see without him knowing. He's going to hate me for saying this, but he was so excited he couldn't sleep, and he didn't even know that he was going to get an AWESOME present the next day!

The kids woke up around 7 and we got the party started!

These pictures are from the Rogers house later Christmas day.

Isaac loves this light. Grandma Rogers bought it for him to read at night, but he's been using it so he can still play with his legos after we turn off the light.

This is Isaac's "what in the world?!" face. He got this movie from Grandma Westerson and was saying how this is the exact same movie as his cousin Jimmy.

The kids like to have 'sleepovers' in each other's rooms and because it was Christmas break, we let the girls sleep in Isaac's room a couple nights. I just thought it was funny to come in and find Cosette sound asleep like this.

So, this is a funny story. Chad has really wanted the new Zelda game. He's been talking about it for months (basically since they announced it's release date) and every time he got money from his wonderful mother he would say, "I'm not going to buy anything right now because I'm going to save it and buy Zelda when it comes out." Well, life happened and that money got spent on other things and when the game finally came out, he couldn't get it because we have 2 hospital stays to pay off. He was so bummed about it so I email his mom and asked if she could help out. She went online and bought it immediately! Here comes the funny part... We REALLY wanted this to be a surprise for Chad (it's nearly impossible to surprise that man), so were being as sneaky as we could. The package was supposed to arrive on Tuesday and I was home all day and UPS never showed. I had to leave for an appointment @4:30 and didn't want Chad to happen upon the package so I asked my neighbor to keep an eye out and grab it if she saw it that night. While I was gone she had grabbed a pizza (and she's oh so wonderful and has saved me so many times at dinner time) and thought she would share with us. As she opened her door to come bring us pizza ups showed up, dropped the package and knocked and then ran back downstairs. It was perfect timing. She hurried and grabbed the package, tossed it into her apt. and then was standing on our doorstep with pizza when Chad opened the door. It was so perfect!

Opening presents at the Rogers

I forgot to bring the camera to the Shapiro family party, but it was so much fun too! I love getting together with my family, they're wonderful. And I love that the kids have ALL their cousins to play with. The minute we walk in the door, the kids are off and we don't see much of them until it's time to leave, it's beautiful. I think we're considering changing the name from 'family party' to 'the great cousin exchange' because we always seem to exchange kids for a day or two. This time Debbie was included and got to spend the night with her cousin Emma. Thanks family, I love you all!