Christmas Celebration

Casey, Koby, and Braidon with their new remote control cars.

Audrey and Cierra model their new robes from Grandma Syl.

Notice Audrey is not in the picture! That's two years in a row we have tried. Do we try again next year? Third time is a charm right?

Oh where to start with all the Holiday fun and festivities! Guess we'll start with Christmas Eve. Ryan's Yoder side of the family has a big get-together Christmas Eve so we headed to Bethany Church for that. We had wonderful food and just sat and visited while the kids enjoyed playing in the gym. When we came home we were ready to hit the hay for the night. We had promised the kids that we could sleep by the tree so earlier in the day we made all our beds. Ryan and Audrey were planning to sleep on the floor and Casey and I were planning to sleep on the two couches. A couple things turned our nice special family night into a "what in the world were we thinking" night. #1 Audrey had taken a nap that day so she wasn't terribly tired and #2 they were just way too excited to be out of their beds and they knew that Christmas was oh so close! We read several books hoping that sleep would settle in quickly. Didn't work too well....I think we switched who was sleeping where about 4 times, got drinks several times, turned various lights on and off because it was too light, then too dark, and went to the bathroom. That was over the course of several hours. Finally at 12:30 when I woke up from a little doze and Audrey was standing up looking at me I told her that we were going upstairs. Casey did fall asleep and made it the rest of the night. Maybe we'll have to rethink that one for next year! They were both pretty tired the next morning. I had to wake Audrey up at about 9:15 to open presents before we went to Steve and Holly's for Christmas breakfast. They opened their presents but didn't have much time to play. After the breakfast we came home and they played for awhile then but both of them were pretty tired and took naps before heading to Jr. and Sylvia's for our celebration over there. We opened presents in the garage and the kids spent a considerable amout of time playing out there with their presents. We had a delicious Thanksgiving meal. By Saturday morning we were all just ready to stay at home in our pajamas and get things sorted out and cleaned up after having several days of crazy schedules. But it was all fun....well, maybe all but our Christmas Eve by the tree!