Christmas Morning

I awoke on Christmas morning at 4:45 am to the sounds of my oldest (the one who could sleep until noon if I let him) telling me that he was ready to get up. In an attempt to make sure the rest of the family stayed asleep I got up with him and we waited for the girls and Mike to get up. Finally they woke and we snapped a few pictures before they tore into their gifts. I have always done the Christmas Shopping in our family however, this year Mike picked up a few things at some "black Friday" sales and I supplemented with some online shopping of my own. Each year I tell myself that we are just going to do three gifts for each child and somehow I don't stick to that commitment. I so want Christmas to be less about the over and abundance of gifts and more about the grand celebration of of the birth of Jesus and while I did go overboard once again on the gifts I do think that for the first time we were able to take some time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. I didn't get many pictures of Christmas because I was trying to multi-task and between trying to monitor the breakfast casserole and buttermilk biscuits plus watching the kids open their gifts I didn't get as many pictures as I would like.

Before the opening of gifts.

Grace received a few science and craft kits....we are going to be busy.

Emily got a few kits of her own.

Can you tell he's been up for hours....

This was a dress up kit that Mike bought at an after Thanksgiving Sale at a discount store. We already have tons of dress up stuff but this ended up being the item that the have girls played with the most.

Cody taking the "relaxed" approach to opening gifts...or maybe he is just tired.

Grace was thrilled with a new jewelry box. Gotta have a place to store all her bling.

Christmas Day ended for us with a feast that I have to confess was not one of my best meals. In fact I normally look forward to left overs but I was eager for this meal to find its way to the garbage disposal. I am not sure why but I found myself in a bit of a fog on Christmas day and couldn't seem to get myself together in the kitchen. I had planned our traditional favorites for Christmas Dinner which are dishes that I have cooked many times but for some reason didn't pull them together this year. Perhaps it was because I tried to make changes in the recipes to make smaller portions since it was just the 5 of us or maybe it was because my kids were absolutely wild and crazy and wouldn't give me a moments peace to read a recipe It was too cold for them to go outside and burn off some of that energy so they ran circles around me in the kitchen (a FL Christmas may not be white but at least the weather typically allows for some energy burning outside activity while Christmas Dinner is prepared) Nevertheless, Christmas Dinner left alot to be desired but my husband praised me and said it was delicious. And so another Christmas as come and gone leaving us with some wonderful memories of our first Colorado Christmas.

I realized that I left out a picture in my Christmas Eve post of Grace holding her Chatty Girl Book so here she is. This is such a wonderful Christmas story.

And here is a pic of the Toffee Tiramisu Cake