Christmas 2009

The traditional opening of new pajamas on Christmas Eve.

Here are the kids in their new pajamas. Everyone seems happy with what I picked out. Brandon in Buzz Lightyear, Jake in Airforce/airplanes and Emma in pink and cute.

Putting Santa's plate out with homemade cookies, carrotts for the reindeer and chocolate milk.
Brandon was given some reindeer food at his playgroup so he and Matt are putting it on a plate getting the food ready.
Here they are in the backyard putting the reindeer food out.

SANTA DELIVERS!!!

Jake with his favorite gift...LEGOS!!Emma and her favorite gift...Sketch pad and drawing pencils.

Brandon and his favorite...BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!!!Brandon's other Santa gift...Playdough.All the kids were given new pillowcases from Matt's mom. The pillowcases had each of the kids names on it, and if you look closely it also has sewn in glow in the dark thread "Did you think to pray?" I think these are so cool and the kids thought they were pretty neat too. They all slept with them on Christmas Eve.Now for my favorite Christmas gift. Matt and the kids had been working out in the garage for about a week on a homemade gift for me. I was banned from the garage and the office so I would not see the gift in progress. The picture below is the gift wrapped up. I had no idea what it was because they had done a great job at concealing the actual shape of my gift.

This is my gift. My friend Niccole had made this vinyl sign for me intended for me to just put directly on my wall like I had so many other times. However, this vinyl sign would not fit and I was very disappointed. So Matt made a frame and bought some plexiglass and put the vinyl on it for me. I have to say I was not at all surprised at how well it turned out. Matt is a very skilled craftsman. I love the sign and that Matt and the kids took the time and thought to make something that meant a lot to me. It will be soon hanging in my front room. I hope you can read what it says because I love it. After we opened all the gifts, we watched a lot of new movies, played lots of new games, and ate and ate. In the end it was a nice quiet Christmas, just the way we like it.