Mer-RAY Christmas

i am just cheesy enough to love all the fun ways to play on our last name. 8 1/2 years in and it's not old yet!

our Christmas eve consisted of making 8 dozen elves caps, 8 dozen peanut clusters, and 2 large pans of double delicious cookie bars for caroling. i also cleaned, wrapped, and taught the girls to vacuum in between baking. our plan was to head out caroling as close to 4 as possible, but you know, life. frankie and i delivered a gift to quinn, and dari and i like to talk, soooo... we continued our 2-year-running pizza hut for Christmas eve dinner tradition. i love traditions soooo much, but i strangely don't have a lot. i'm just such a spaz and like to try new things. even things like my recipe books are pretty sparse because i'm always trying new recipes. i don't know, maybe someday we'll find something that works.

anywho, after pizza hut we headed to mccombs to plate cookies (they were running late too) and headed out just after 6. i mapped our route of 12 houses and we were off. first stop, aina's! i had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag when i texted sarah instead of laura, but all's well that ends well cause we didn't really want to walk down in the mud to the aina's door anyway. ;) this is our one and only picture from our caroling fun. it's tough taking pictures when you're busy singing badly as loudly as you can. ;) and the girls pretty much looked like this at every house. there was no singing going on there, even though they knew all the sings and regularly sing them around the house and in our car.

we caroled all around town until 8:30, when we hurried home and opened our Christmas jams. we tried and tried to take a nice family picture.

seriously tried.

time outs were administered. 4, but who's counting.

we talked and lectured and tried some more.

#asgoodasitgets
#wemissbubba
#somedaymeandmy4girlswillallmatch

matt the elf disappeared downstairs as soon as the girls got to bed. sydney stopped by and we had such a fun time visiting. lexi always had/has friends coming and going and, while it was/is annoying sometimes, i also really miss it. most of her friends are fun and friendly and we all joke around and laugh, at her mostly. last night was no exception. and i quote "boys love me! i don't know why, cause i'm psycho." oooooooh to be young again. that girl. after hanging out with the big girls, when i finally took laney to bed, (late nap) we were putting her books away. when i asked her to pick up a book she said, very snottily "okay! stop being cwazy, mom." little sistah needs to check herself before she wrecks herself.

frankie and matt (per the norm) were the first awake. they came down and opened their stockings and waited patiently for the rest of us. addie came to wake me up around 8:30. we raided stockings and finally decided to wake the 2 sleeping beasts - #1 & #5. lexi woke up easier than laney. :/

addie was so excited to get going!

laney reluctantly and grumpily opened her first present, after that she was good.

frankie got roller blades and wore them until we left for the day at 11:30. she loves them!

laney was cute and would say "i love it!" and "it's just what i wanted!" for everything she opened. there was even some hugging of gifts, as in these flippers i bought after summer clearance.

i tend to opt for the if-i'm-buying-it-around-Christmas-i'm-wrapping-it mentality. cue leotards and cuddle duds.

after all the opening, addie noticed there was nothing, other than stockings from santa. then matt and i got to do our routine of "hmmm, what did santa bring last year," to get them downstairs. we are sneaky-sneaky. a new art desk! what a surprise! we hung out and organized art supplies for a long time. mommy loves it! and despite addie saying that santa probably didn't bring them what they wanted because they hadn't told him, i think the girls will grow to love it too. they did love it while we organized, but it's definitely not the most fun gift ever. ps - addie really wants a menorah. little jewish girl.

lexi was there too. resolution - more pictures of the big kids. i think they are mostly over their teen photo dodging, i just need to take my opportunities.

we went to see night at the museum at 12:40. another new thing we tried. not sure i love the movie on Christmas idea though. it was tough getting out of jams so early. and then we got home late and 3/5's of us (lexi stayed to exchang presents with friends) had tummy aches, so we decided to postpone Christmas dinner. for those keeping track, we did that last year too. i do like the idea of not doing a big Christmas dinner (mama wants a fun day too!), just need to figure out what to have instead. we also postponed because instead of prepping yesterday, we made dozens of cookies. it all goes along with my life motto lately, "it's good enough." nothing like lowering standards, right? ;) just keeping it real.

we watched Christmas movies and played with our new toys. we busted out these water beads i've been eying for months.

everyone loved them! they are seriously cool, and therapeutic for children of all ages.

 

we've been so blessed with another wonderful year and a very merry Christmas. we are so blessed and so grateful that our Savior gave us the most important gift of all. 

Merry Christmas 2014!