Christmas

Our little family had an amazing Christmas! The holiday started off with Peter giving me one of his gifts he had for me on Christmas Eve morning. LOVE!! 

I had to run to the store to shop for some food items for Xmas Eve and Xmas Day meals. I figured I'd beat the crowds if I went at 7 am. Everyone else had the same idea because the parking lot was half full that early in the morning. But I've been out at the stores on Christmas Eve before and it wasn't anything as hectic as it is later in the afternoon. Anyhow, once I was done shopping, I headed home to make breakfast: strawberry cream cheese stuffed french bacon, bacon, and orange juice (mimosas for the adults). YUM!

 Here's Kristjan warming up by the fire...

 After everyone was showered and dressed, we all opened our one Christmas Eve gift. I prefer waiting until nighttime to do this, but I'm always overruled on this. Peter and boys got new pj's, per tradition (I found mine laying on my bed when I got out of my shower. So no pic of me opening my gift, as I was wearing my new nightgown and robe when I took these pics). 

We let the boys open one more gift. LEGOS!!

 We went out to lunch at Boston's, the boys' favorite place to eat at currently. 

 Here I am acting like I'm lovingly showing affection to Kristjan, when I'm really just showing off my ring for the picture. He quickly caught on to what I was doing, and we had a good laugh.

After lunch we met our friends Anne & Erik and Luzia (her hubby is a mailman and was unfortunately working) and all their kiddos for a few games of bowling. Peter and I decided we'll be taking a break from doing this on future Xmas Eves and instead do something different, though we're not sure what. 

When we came home from bowling, we had a package waiting at our front door. It was our MegaBots t-shirts! If you're unfamiliar with MegaBots, google them up. Basically, the USA has challenged Japan to a giant robot duel. Peter donated to the cause, and we received two shirts, a poster and a sticker for our price-level donation. Super cool!

 Here's our traditional Christmas Eve dinner buffet spread. Yum!

 Admiring our tree as we sit as a family to watch Elf

 I sat out cookies for Santa. Boys found out the truth about Santa a few months back. Actually, they've suspected for quite a while now, but just kept quiet. But I couldn't putting some on our Santa plate.

 Stockings are out! 

Christmas morning Peter and I woke up after 6 am, which is our normal time we wake up during the week. We quietly snuck out into the kitchen to grab our stockings and make our way back to bed to open up gifts from each other.

 Next we gave Sheeba and Chewie their gift.....new bones for each of them

 Boys finally woke up, only because they heard Peter and I talking downstairs when letting the dogs out for their morning ritual. Otherwise, I think they would have kept sleeping!

 And so we begin opening our gifts. Here are just a few pics of the many awesome gifts we received.

(I really, really like the pic below. We signed Kristjan up for an after-school art class. He made the picture he's holding and gave it to us as a gift. LOVE!)

 It didn't take us very long to open all our gifts....in fact, it never does. Peter and I like to keep our gift pile down to a minimum. We prefer quality over quantity, plus it makes us grateful for what we have. So after gift opening, we had a cup of hot chocolate and started in on making eggs benedict.

 We spent the rest of our Christmas Day lounging about. Boys put together Lego sets and played with their other toys. Peter couldn't wait any longer and started rearranging the house. He's been anxiously waiting to try a new arrangement in the living room, but I told him he couldn't touch anything until after Christmas. I guess he figured since the gifts were open, Christmas was "over". I just rolled my eyes and went about making my pies for dessert lol. 

Here we are right before we chowed down on our delicious Christmas dinner feast

Our 3 pies for dessert: lemon, chocolate and banana cream. I was asked to make a minimum of 3. Never again! It was way too much to have for just the four of us! I ended up sending slices to work with Peter.