christmas

 Every year I think Christmas could never get any better, and every year I'm wrong.  Here are the six (seven!!) of us on Christmas Eve.

 We spent the evening with Sean's parents, grandmother, and Eric and Allison and their boys.  (We missed our Florida family - Sara, Warren and their kids!)  Wyatt read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2.

Elliott and her My Twinn doll - it looks just like her!

They got matching pajamas, which made them look even more alike.

 Elliott had been saying for weeks that she wanted her mamaw to get her a Dora necklace.  (Don't ask me where that came from - she's not really even a Dora fan.)  So after searching high and low, Sean's mom found her this 10K gold one! Elliott was thrilled.

 

 I didn't take pictures of all the present-opening, but the boys got new robes, books, Wii games, a couple board games, and some iTunes and Visa gift cards. 

 Cade had fun reading Elliott's Dora book with his cousin Cohen!

 I think Cade's favorite part of the evening was changing out of his church clothes and into his jammies.  The kid is never happier than when he's naked.  Ha!

We left cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.  (Elliott was already in bed by this point.)

And then Santa came over night!  These pictures are from Christmas morning.

Wyatt's big gift was an iPod touch - which he was super excited about.

 And Kellen's big present was a video camera.  It's funny how, the older they are, the smaller their "big" gifts get.

Sean got the first 3 seasons of Sons of Anarchy on DVD.

 And I got a new sewing machine and serger!  I'm amassing quite a collection.  ;-)  I was so surprised, because my last present to open was just a really small, light box.  It had a piece of paper instructing me to go to another Christmas tree and open the big boxes marked "to John from Debbie" (his parents).  Sneaky little booger.  You can't really tell what my shirt says - it reads "I ate the milk and cookies."  I was feeling ironic, I guess.  ;-)  Plus I'm at the pregnancy stage where I could be pregnant or I could have just eaten too much.  Ha!

The kids and their stockings. 

Kellen, definitely the biggest Christmas fan in our house, wanted to savor his gift experience and chose to open his stocking later.  Somehow I didn't get a picture of him.  We had such a great, lazy day.  None of us got out of our jammies all day.  (A little note about our PJs... I have been using the same pattern to make Christmas pajamas for 3 years now, and it's such a fun way to see how my boys have grown.  I had to cut Kellen's from the adult pattern this year!)  We ate a HUGE breakfast, watched Christmas movies, played games, played with toys, ate a big Christmas dinner (Big Fatty's pork tenderloin - oh. so. good.) and laughed all day long!  I already can't wait til next year.