Santa Was Here

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. We had a very nice Christmas here. Per our usual tradition, we went over to Steve's parents' house Christmas eve and exchanged presents with his parents, brother, sister and their families. Steve's mom usually just hands out cash, and this year was no exception. Thanks mom! :) We basically just hung out, ate lasagna and watched the Broncos game. On the way home, we took our time and found some spectacular light displays. But we needed to get home, because Santa couldn't come until Kylie was asleep, you know.

In spite of my children's less-than-stellar behavior, somehow they wound up on the "nice" list again this year. Santa must be lowering his standards. He did make a stop at our house...I have evidence:

The kids dug into their stockings while we waited for my parents to arrive, which they did around 9am. We turned on the yule log/Christmas music channel on the TV, and Kylie immediately did this:

You would think I told her to do that just for a picture, but that's what she honestly did. She thought the screen might be hot to the touch. Arizona kids, sheesh.

Kylie loves Littlest Pet Shop stuff, so this was a big hit:

Danni was even almost awake:

Somehow, Santa brought a Wii to my house. I'm not sure what my kids did to deserve this, or how he found one, but nonetheless:

I kind of slipped up one day about it, so the two older kids kind of knew about it...so we made it the very last gift and made them hunt clues for it. My mom always used to do that when I was a kid, and I remember how fun it was. I try to do it for my kids too. Actually, I had the envelope with the first clue hidden under the tree skirt, so for a moment it looked like there were no more presents. Shannon had kind of a disappointed look, but I was only going to hold back for a second or two. Then I found out that Steve told her we had taken it back, because they found out about it. He's so mean! Anyway, I quickly handed Shannon the envelope, and she and Kylie raced around the house, finding the clues (there were about 8 of them) and finally the wrapped up Wii in the dryer. Hee. Danni was content to sit on the couch and let them find it. I think the reason that Steve looks so thrilled in the background is because he knows he's about to have to hook something up.

Grandad was pretty excited about all the action by this point:

Once Steve got the Wii hooked up, which was a surprisingly short amount of time, everyone (read: the kids and Steve) spent most of the rest of the day playing with it. Here Steve and Shannon are playing baseball:

Then everyone showed off their bowling technique:

Steve and I actually bowl on a league, and he's really good (like 200+ average), so even when he bowls on the Wii, he still has to have the "form".

See that orange shirt on the couch behind him? Yeah, that was my present to him, an authentic throwback, #7 Elway Broncos jersey. He was pretty stunned when he opened that. I had to explain to him that I had gone into the sports store, not intending to buy that. I was just going to get him a shirt. But then I found out that all teams that were already out of the playoffs? All the apparel was 40% off! So I had to tell him, basically you finally got your Elway jersey (those things aren't cheap!) because the Broncos suck so bad this year. Heh!

And now I have to show you my favorite gift...my new boots/slippers. And no, they are NOT Uggs. They are generic Uggs. lol But I love them, and I've been wearing them everywhere since Christmas day. Unfortunately, they'll only have about a four month shelf life here in AZ, the rest of the year it will be too hot to wear them. So I intend to get full use out of them while I can. I love these boots. Well done, honey.

Dinner was ham, baked potatoes, corn, dinner rolls and pumpkin pie. Yum! Mimi and Grandad left around 4:30pm. By that time, by all rights it should have been time for a nice long nap, but somehow, it wasn't. I was in bed quite early though, about 8pm, with a glass of wine, trying to calm my nerves while Kylie was still jumping around. I couldn't believe she hadn't crashed by then.

We actually had a very nice day, no major catastrophes, everyone was happy with their gifts. And still, somehow at the end of the day, every last nerve I had was shot. Wine helps! Merry Christmas, everyone!