One of our best Christmases ever.....

Here are the Santa presents each child asked for.....Legos Police Command station for Xander, Legos Star Wars destroyer ship for Garrett, an American Girl baby doll for Eleanor and Savannah got a Magnadoodle..... The stockings were full of dental supplies this year, though the boys got itunes gift cards and the girls got pretties for their hair and to wear....

Grama Annie made the cutest tutus for the girls...Eleanor also got a special crown. They have worn the tutus every day since they got them....in public, to tithing settlement, shopping...I love that they love wearing them!

Eleanor got her American Girl baby doll. She named her "Flower" (I'm pretty sure her mom is from Oregon and hugs trees and wears Birkenstocks, but I could be wrong!) I made new blankets and pillow and burp cloths for her and she got a new bottle in her stocking.
Everyone got one extra present....Garrett got a Carolina Panther's jersey...he was THRILLED!!

It was wonderfully simple and everyone was content! We had one mishap...Santa should have brought Savannah a baby doll too. She lunged for Eleanor's and we sent someone at lightning speed to grab a doll from upstairs. All was calm after that, but she likes to "kidnap" Flower and stroll her around when Eleanor is not looking...we have to bribe her with another baby doll when Eleanor wants Flower back.

My very favorite present were the watercolors from my Mom. They made me cry and my children will not inherit them til I die! In May, when I went out to visit, we chose the pictures I wanted her to paint. For some reason, I forgot about them these last few weeks. I opened them and burst into tears. They are truly masterpieces, labors of love and I have the best mom in the world! (And, yes, I will post pictures of them later!)

Jason's parents came over for brunch and we ate some seriously yummy huevose rancheros and crab cakes that I made from scratch. They gave us a Wii for Christmas. It was a fun to try it out! It was the perfect amount of presents and the perfect amount of entertainment.

We were able to skype my dad in Kuwait, Anna and John and fam in Germany and Ray and Stephanie and fam in Arizona. By phone we talked to Emma and Jake and Mom and Marlowe. I talked to Becca and Sarah the day before and Eliza a few days before that. I love my family so much and even though we are millions of miles apart (literally!) I saw Cousin Bella and Maddie and Eric and saw Ray and Steph's awesome house (I am inspired Stephanie!) and got to tell Sarah how much I love her and miss her and hear all about Becca's awesome advertures in motherhood! It was wonderful!!!!
The most important thing was that we were able to keep our perspective and remember the true meaning of Christmas. We are so blessed because our children were thrilled with what they got and we were together. We are blessed to have a home, food and a job. I am blessed to be able to fufill my desire to be a stay at home mom. My health is improving and that is such a huge blessing. We are taking each day at a time and loving every minute of it!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Twas the night before Christmas....

Ok, so it was two nights before Christmas when we did our Christmas Nativity Pagaent... We were invited to a Christmas Eve party and decided to go this year. Here we are getting ready for the pagaent....Savannah with sunglasses? Mary doing a pre-pagaent photo shoot....
Reading stories in our cute matching pj's from Auntie Jessica.....
The cast....

Oldest to youngest.....

Mary and Joseph....

This year the donkey got a reprieve and was carried....

At the stable...

The shepherd would not cooperate and took off her costume....

This is the wise man.....

Bringing gifts to Mary and the baby Jesus....

It was a great pagaent. I know the children will remember this for years to come...I remember how great the Johnson pagaents were. Even though it is somewhat comical, I know the children are learning the true meaning of Christmas through acting out this story.

The next day was Christmas Eve day and we made cinnamon rolls...three batches to be exact...about 100 cinnamon rolls later, we delivered to the neighbors and home teaching families and saved some for Christmas morning. Eleanor loved helping!

Cinnamon rolls are such a tradition in our family. I will always remember my mom making cinnamon rolls for us to eat on Christmas morning...

That evening we went to our dear friends house, the Nixons. They have invited us to their traditional Christmas Eve party for years and this year we decided we would go. Their house was amazing, the dinner was fabulous and I told "Twas the night before Christmas" to the children until these two special people showed up....

Each child was given a present from Santa and Mrs. Clause and sat on his lap....

The children were so excited....

Well, except for Savannah!

Eleanor received a beautiful necklace with her inital on it. She was so excited as we drove home and just knew it was the real Santa...we all agreed that it was!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Afterward, we came home and opened our Christmas eve jammies. It is a tradition on both families to get Christmas eve PJ's and wear them so Santa will come.....

She's getting the hang of it!

Yawn! Then it was off to bed to await Christmas morning....except Dad heard running water in the house. We FINALLY figured out that it was the back hose...because water was spewing out of the hose area! Luckily, we were able to turn the water off to the outside and can deal with it after the weekend...it was then that we all settled down for a long winter's nap!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Christmas Cousin Photo Shoot

Grandma Day requested pictures of the grandkids for Christmas....a simple enough request...unless you are trying to get 9 children, ages 1-11, to all look forward and smile at the same time...plus trying to organize schedules and nap times and everything else! We talked about going to a photo studio, but then decided to meet at the church and do it ourselves. 253 pictures, several hours, snacks and bribes later this is what we came up with....(no studio would have worked with us for four hours and let the children run wild between photos!)

Savannah was NOT going to keep her bow in!

Still early in the photo shoot, all children smiling and looking forward...

Here are the girl cousins...Catherine, Ashley, Lauren, Eleanor and Savannah....

The boy cousins...Xander, Garrett, Zorig and Bouveii...

A cute shot of my princess.....

And the princess in training....

Love those eyes!

Xander....

And one of my favorites of Garrett.....

This is how most of the pictures turned out.....

But, we were able to pull off quite a few darling ones....

Eleanor, Zorig and Lauren

Garrett and Ashley

Another one of my favorites....Xander and Catherine with their flutes...

And Garrett with his cello....

Afterwards we celebrated with a trip to Chipotle for dinner and then popcorn and Kung Fu Panda video at our house while we edited the photos. It was a great day to spend with cousins!

I'm pretty sure Grandma Charlotte is going to LOVE her Christmas present!