Christmas!

We woke up Christmas morning to this note Santa left in our Christmas tree...

{good things Santa has it all figured out because I sure had not thought through the logistics of waking up with no gifts under the tree and somehow convincing/telling the kids that maybe Santa had left them at grandpa and grandma's and then explaining why? how?}

Thank you Santa for covering me on that one!

...and this SNOW {finally} on our front driveway.  The kids sat in the car while Gregg and I shoveled a path until our phones started ringing and everyone at grandma and grandpa's were wondering where we were.

Christmas magic!

Pete and grandpa ready for the action.

This was one of my favorite gifts from the morning.  We do a family gift giving rotation and this year McKay had our family.  I took this picture to send him and say "thanks" for the gift!

{of course my mom bought and wrapped something to give us, so thoughtful and unnecessary}.  McKay later wrote home and said "How nice of me.  What did I get you?"

Everyone gathered around!

First the kids opened the gifts in their stockings.

Lots of fun little toys and things to play with.

Jean showing grandpa and grandma Arave her new dolls.

Odd shaped gifts are the best.

Everyone enjoying their stocking trinkets.

It looks like we weren't very good this year .... our stockings were left empty :(

Another "Santa" overside on my part.  Sorry Gregg.  I did remember to get stuff for my parents stockings!!!

What is that face?!

The amazing barbie collection!

Truman and Bodie got a new BYU jersey {finally, there other ones 

was looking ghetto and a wee-bit small}!

Next Truman opened this Star Wars Lego from us - and that was the end of Truman.  He didn't open another gift all morning - he was gone to the loft working on the Lego.

We had Nate, Lauren and Tagg's name for Christmas but with their upcoming move to Japan it made buying for them difficult.

Our boys still really wanted to get something for Tagg to open on Christmas morning.

I think Tagg approves.

It even taste good!

And we didn't leave Nate and Lauren out - we gave them a gift card to spend how they need/want on their move.

Enoch was pretty happy about his gift from his parents, a new mountain bike.

Dolls, dolls and more dolls.

Anna picked out and wrapped this candy cane with ball candy in it for Bodie, he LOVED it.

'thank you' hugs for his cousin.

Tagg gave grandma the book "How to babysit a grandma"

Cute!

Nate had a specially gift for Bodie ....

A bag full of travel size toothpastes.  Bodie's favorite {you can kind of see his huge smile behind the bag}.  Thank you Nate for traveling so much and keeping Bodie supplied!!!

Pete loves his new friend.

We have read the easy reader Book of Mormon several times as a family so we decided to give our kids this new "Ites" book to read as part of our family scriptures at night.

My dad's yawn explains it all!

The presents just kept going, and going, and going ...

It was so much fun, but we had to brace ourselves with so many people.

Bodie opened all our family gifts since Truman was preoccupied with his Lego during all the festivities.

Bodie's obsession with octopuses' and squids is still going strong so I couldn't pass up this cute stuffed animal octopus {Bodie is my stuffed animal kid}.

Nelson is a little bit of a terror so he was banished to his dad's shoulders!

Aaron is excited about the Legos ... they are for Nelson.  They were my boys {and I think before that some of them were Enoch's} but they have out grown them so we washed them and wrapped them for Nelson and asked Tiff to return them as a gift for Pete next year.  That's how we roll around here.  Share!

Truman emerged sometime in the late morning with one Lego done and one to go.

He stopped building long enough to open a gift from his friends.

A new game.

Life father, like son.

The orange cranberry pull apart that I put in the oven last night and baked this morning was divine.  This year I added some of this organic toasted coconut from Costco to one of the pull-a-parts and it was amazing!

Lego time.

I love this pictures of Truman.  BYU jersey, Legos and Star Wars - it pretty much sums him up perfectly right now.

The aftermath.

We gave Bodie a big boat for the water with all sorts of cool moving parts and of course an octopus.

The bike!

Cute Tagg crawling around.

I laid down for a little nap - it looks like Nate joined me!

Thanks to whoever took this picture, it just showed up on my camera!

tech time.

I love this picture of Lauren and Tagg.

Grandma reading her new book.

The second Lego finally finished.  He needed a little bit of help from dad.

Anna and Tagg.

We have had a breakfast tradition since we were little kids of eating egg "McMuffins" on Christmas morning.  This year they weren't on the menu and we all protested!

Enoch is at the cutest age right now, just about to turn 8.

He cracks me up and my kids adore him.

Here he is telling me in a very dramatic way that all he wants "for Christmas are his two front teeth"

It was just one of those picture perfect moments!

This kids is a terror.

You can not take your eyes off him.

Yum Pete.

Truman and Bodie checking out Bodie's new boat.

We tried to take Tagg's 11-month old pictures and Pete's 10-month old pictures but they were not having it.

Tagg decided to get happy and Pete decided to be sad.

We will try later...

These next few pictures just showed up on my camera as well.

Nate toasting with my kids!

Nice Nate.

And playing a little battle ship.

And then Legos.

Nate is a very loved uncle.

Tiffany is the one who originally talked me into buying this toy for Bodie.  Actually, she just put it in my cart one day several months ago when we were shopping and said, "Bodie really needs this"

She was happy Christmas finally rolled around so she could check it out.  Seriously!

Trying out some new games.

And of course, what is a get together without a little Aaron project?

This time he took apart my laminator to fish out a piece of paper that had been jammed in it for months and was finally causing my laminator not to work.

Thank you Aaron, and dad.