Merry Christmas to All

And that brings us to Christmas...it was wonderful.  As always.  Brookie spent the night with us the night before Christmas Eve.  She woke up at about 5 a.m., which actually ended up being a blessing as she and I started preparing food right then and it took us over two hours to make deviled eggs, hashbrown casserole, broccoli salad, and sweet potato casserole.  And then it was time to make cookies.  The boys were up by this time and we made gingerbread and sugar cookies to take to Nana's to decorate. 

We headed to Nana and Bampaw's at about 1:30 p.m. and decorated our cookies and the kids played together while we waited for Abby and Uncle Craig to arrive.  Once they came, the kids settled down with Bampaw to read The Night Before Christmas before tearing into the gifts.  They were spoiled rotten as always.  The highlights for Ben were his telescope and wrestling ring from Nana and Bampaw and Joey was particularly pumped about his InnoTab from  Nana and Bampaw and his dinosaur from Abby and Uncle Craig.

We were home at a decent hour and the boys enjoyed putting cookies and chocolate milk out for Santa and sprinkling reindeer food in the yard.

Ben woke up at about 3:30 a.m. but we convinced him to climb in bed with us and go back to sleep until 7, at which time he was allowed to wake up Joey.  We heard Santa leaving our house and tried to see him out the window.  The boys were so excited about their gifts and tore through the whole pile in about 25 minutes.  A new record.  They were most excited about their personal DVD players from Santa. 

We headed to Oma's at 11 a.m. and enjoyed spending time with daddy's family.  More spoiling occured and the boys loved the games, puzzles, guys and money they received at Oma's.  We got home around 3 p.m. and Joey and I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie while daddy and Ben played Uno.  Nana, Bampaw, and Aunt Mallory came over around 5:30 to enjoy some leftovers and see all the boys gifts.

It was a wonderful day.  We are truly blessed.