Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We had such a wonderful Christmas this year and are so blessed in so many ways this season. We have had a crazy last couple of months but it was so nice to enjoy this special holiday together with our family and remember some of the more important things that life is really about.

Here we are anxiously waiting to head downstairs to see if Santa made it to our house. We are staying with my parents right now so we were excited to be able to spend Christmas morning with them, my sisters, and my brother Andy and his wife Angie. Kaylee was so excited all night because she knew Santa was coming. This year was so fun because it was really the first year that Kaylee understood what was going on. She spent the month of December writing out her Santa list, watching for elves out the window who we told her were watching to make sure she was being a good girl, singing Christmas carols, making Christmas treats, and her favorite, hanging up the items on the advent calendar every day in anticipation of the big day. On Christmas Eve Kaylee was at first very excited to go to bed as we opened our new Christmas PJ's and left out cookies for Santa. But. . . as she got into bed with Janessa, Janessa was soon fast asleep and Kaylee was just sitting staring at the ceiling. I kept going up to check on her because Santa couldn't come until she was fast asleep! Every time I went up there she was in the same position staring at the ceiling. She told me she just couldn't sleep because she was too excited. Then she told me she couldn't sleep because she heard Santa's sleigh bells outside. She was just so cute, she was trying so hard to fall asleep like the other girls but just couldn't control her excitement! Finally late late LATE that night she fell asleep. In the morning she sat at the top of the stairs ready to run downstairs to see if Santa had come.

Of course, Santa did make an appearance at our house this year! He not only stopped here but it looked as if he unloaded his sleigh in our basement! Kaylee was so excited she was just speechless with a huge grin on her face. She didn't quite know how to react but she knew she was really excited!

We always start out with the stockings. Our stockings are in storage so we had to use some of Nana and Papa's old ones. Kaylee was not too sad about this, though, as these stockings were extra extra long!

We then moved on to the presents. We start with the youngest, who before Kenna woke up was Kaylee, and then take turns opening one present at a time so everyone can see what everyone else got. Kaylee really got into the present opening and was actually very patient waiting her turn while everyone else opened their presents.

Makenna joined our party late as she was getting her beauty sleep in the other room. Daddy couldn't stand it though and finally went in to wake her up and bring her into the party. I don't know how excited Kenna was to be pulled out of bed so early!

Makenna soon got into it, though, as she sat up by all her pretty colored presents. She didn't like opening the presents as much as she enjoyed trying to eat them!


Santa definitely came through this year and we all came out with some wonderful gifts. Kaylee was very excited by her barbies and pink barbie bug car, Mommy and Daddy got some nice Christmas hoodies, and little Kenna got everything pink to play with! She will not know what to do with so many new things to put in her mouth!



Kenna also got some really cute princess shoes. These are her first pair of real shoes so we will see how long she keeps them on. She is a little partial to the bare foot thing!

Here is everyone showing off some of their new duds. Kenna has one of her new bows on that Mommy thinks are absolutely adorable and Daddy pulls off the first chance he gets.Kaylee of course is our little princess with her new church dress and crown she couldn't wait to put on.


Here is Dan in his favorite Christmas gift- his PHOOM sweatshirt! If you do not know what phoom is here is some background- Dan and his friend Adam made this word up when they were in high school and now it is a family staple. They say that the word can be used for a variety of purposes and in a variety of tones that all mean different things. Dan's brother David got a PHOOM shirt from his wife for his birthday last year. Let's just say Dan was dying with jealousy. So, as I thought of a Christmas gift for Dan this year I knew that this would be the perfect one and I was not disappointed with Dan's excitement level when he opened it! So with that Merry Christmas to all and to all a big PHOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

We would like to leave you with our personal highlight of this year's holiday season. Kaylee learned to sing the Polar Express song "When Christmas Comes to Town" to sing on Christmas Eve in our family's talent show. For those of you who know this song this will be a little different version than you may be used to. It is definitely been Kayleeized. She is so cute singing this and we probably heard it at least twenty times a day as she skipped around the house singing it at the top of her lungs over and over and over and over and over . . . . . . . .