Christmas At Home

I know I'm late, but Merry Christmas to everyone reading this! Due to the holidays, Josh has got to spend some extra time at home which translates into: Josh got to spend a lot of extra time playing World of Warcraft. Not a big deal really, but unfortunately, this means no free computer time for me. So the blog got put on the back burner. But we have yet another long weekend coming up due to New Year's, so I best be bloggin' before it hits. Because for some reason, World of Warcraft trumps the Blog. Christmas was great this year. We stayed home. We don't usually travel on Christmas due to having kiddos now. I prefer for them to wake up to Christmas at home. I don't have a single memory of waking up anywhere but home when I was growing up. Christmas eve was spent with my dad's side of the family and the afternoon of Christmas day was spent with my mom's side of the family. Of course, that works when your entire family is located within a half-hour driving distance.
Anyhow, true to tradition, we spent Christmas Eve with some of my dad's side of my family. It was nice. My family breeds like rabbits, so gift exchanging just isn't realistic. But it's plenty of food and fun though. We got to take the kids on horse rides. Abby spent the day crying (she is apparently a home-body). While Alex spent the day following all of the kids around. His new best buddy is Jamie. He talks about him all of the time now. The day ended with two very sleepy monkeys.
Then Christmas morning came. My little monkeys had a blast waking up to presents under the tree. Santa gave Alex (and eventually Abby) a little trampoline. The presents were ripped open in under an hour and each toy was played with before 24 hours were up. I'm also sad to say that in that same 24 hours, we had two toy casualties as well. One of their marvelous presents was a little shopping cart with play food. It was, by far, the favorite toy they got. That was, until Alex attempted to ride in it and...well...let's just say that it has a one way ticket to the recycling bin next week. There is no hope for fixing the poor toy. It never had a chance. The trampoline came with a jump monitor that was pretty cool. It lasted about 8 hours and was snapped off. In the words of the dear doctor McCoy of Star Trek....It's dead Jim. It's got a lot of jump-life in it though. Even miss Abby has had a few turns on it. She can even climb on it herself. (much to my dislike) So thanks to all who got Alex and Abby so many wonderful toys and goodies this year. They were all winners. So here is the holiday in photos. We hope yours was as nice as ours.

My mother and father in law came for an early Christmas. Abby isn't so sure about Grandpa.

Alex found his new best friends on Christmas Eve. He LOVES his cousins Jamie and Linda.

Here is Abby on Christmas morning...note the shopping cart is still in one piece.

Alex and Abby sharing a gift. Though the 'sharing' doesn't seem to be Alex's favorite thing to do now that we have a plethora of new toys.

Here we see the kiddos enjoys stocking stuffers...

...more stocking goodness.

Here we have Alex with his new fire truck. The kid is obsessed with fire trucks.

My wonderful family opening gifts. Aren't those the greenest pants you have ever seen? Who doesn't love a good pair of Mt. Dew pajama pants. Yikes. We aren't exactly known for our keen fashion sense.


Here is Alex enjoying his Christmas stocking stuffer later in the day. Christmas Fun Dip. Who knew. Notice the candy in their mouths in most of the pictures? Yeah...they didn't really nap that day.