Merry Christmas!

Check out our ginormous tree! We kept going back and forth, real... or fake...? And for reasons that I will share on a later post, we didn't want to buy and cart around a fake one, and by that time there were just a few days till Christmas... so we used our tiny tree. Cute, huh?

We had a wonderful, wet, stay-in-pajamas-all-day Christmas! Some pictures of our Christmas fun.

Addie's excitement!


I had ordered Alexis the Twilight box set from Amazon (they had it for less than half of what Barnes and Noble wanted!) but it wasn't supposed to arrive until January, so I printed a picture of it and wrapped it in a hot chocolate box. Christmas Eve, after we got back from delivering Christmas cookies, I found that her box had arrived! So I left the hot chocolate box just to show her how lucky she is!

Now opening the real thing.


Christian's getting ready to start basketball, so he needed a ball!


I had to throw in some practical gifts! All three of them got lunch boxes. :)


I didn't really have any presents to open (I'll show you why later) so the kids let me open one of the Santa gifts. Notice how dark it still is! Lex and Christian were up way before 6:30 going through their stockings, so when Addie wasn't going back to sleep at 6:30, we decided to get up too. After the present fun Matt, Addison, and I went back to sleep! :)


Addie wasn't really into opening presents, surprising because she loves paper! But she thought Christmas was delicious!


Yum!


And on to the playing with the gifts. Matt got an electric leaf blower, he loved it! I really am all about the practical gifts!


Playing.


And playing some more.


Here is our little schoolmarm, wringing her hands around all her gifts.


Christian with his loot.


And Alexis with hers.


Matt was already out using his big gift.


And finally, after months of driving this...


...months of struggling to get Addie in and out, hitting her head, backing into things, and feeling like a hillbilly! After months of scrimping and saving, I finally got this!


Yay, we can all fit now! And the kids can even bring a friend!

About the old truck. When Matt left Clovis to come to California in August, we decided it would be more economical for him to take the Camry since he would be driving more. Remember, I'm a thrifty lady, so I was all for this idea. But it was tough to drive the truck everywhere. I had to back it into our driveway because it wouldn't fit the other way. It's only a two-door, so it really was difficult getting Addison in and out. And I accidentally hit a few things. :) Nothing major, and there's no damage on that tank-of-a-truck, but it's huge and kinda tough to drive. My latest crash (and the one that broke this camel's back and forced me to tell Matt that I was done driving the truck) happened just a few weeks ago. We were getting ready to leave for a Wednesday night activity at church. The kids had gone out to the car first and I thought they had opened the garage door. Can you see where this is going? It was dark, and like I said, the truck is hard to see out of.... anyways, I backed into the garage door, thinking that it was open. I bent the garage just enough that it wouldn't open. Did I mention it was Young Women in Excellence that night? Ugh, it was not a pretty scene. Oh, and Matt was working late, so no one to help me! Soooo, we were trapped at home, and all dressed up and ready to go to church! Do you feel sorry for me yet...? The truck's not all bad, just not a family car. PS - Matt was able to bend the door right back into place and you can't even tell I crashed into it! Hooray for Matt!

Anyways, back to Christmas! We ate dinner late and I didn't feel the need to get pictures since I already captured my amazing cooking of Thanksgiving dinner. :) Everyone pitched in to make dinner so it was really nice! We snacked all day (hence the late dinner) and I had bought some things to remind us of our childhood Christmases.

These always remind me of mama and daddy Rays's house at Christmas! So I had to buy them!

My mom would make queso in the crockpot and we would eat chips and queso throughout the day. Yum!



There was more snacking of course, just stuff that I didn't capture. Anyways, we had a wonderful day. And a beautiful reading of the Christmas story in the bible. We missed our families, but we had a nice family day of our own. Hope you had a Merry Christmas too!