Christmas 2011

Christmas Eve day was spent getting ready for Santa to come. We told the boys he was looking to see if their room was clean enough and if they deserved new toys. They BARELY made the deadline to call Santa before he left the North Pole. Phew!

John loves his Mom's homemade tomato soup that she used to make every Christmas Eve. We barely got the call into them in Germany to see what ingredients we needed before the store closed! It was delicious and we made some toasted French bread to dip in it. Yum!!

After dinner John and the boys needed hair cuts so I clipped away. Then we sent them off for baths. The Pajama Fairy came while they were cleaning up!


Coen absolutely loved getting to open a present and didn't mind the fact it was pajamas. In fact, he loved that they were robot jammies!!

Marshall knows the jammies as a tradition, Coen was a little stumped and was ready to go open the other presents (that weren't even there yet).

They each got a badly needed 2 pack! Yay for new jammies!!
(And yay for me taking them back to Target to get the price adjusted when they went on sale the DAY AFTER I bought them! Don't you hate that?! But I'm glad I caught it!!)

After they were all snuggly and warm in their new jammies, we sat down to talk about why we celebrate Christmas.

John read to us from the Bible.

These 2 rascals 'followed' along,

one more so than the other.

Marshall ran around as Rudolph.

Coen joined in his reindeer games.

We missed Grandpa Bradley's rendition of the red-neck Night Before Christmas story, but the classic version had to do.

Pictures in their new jammies by the tree, sans presents because you can imagine what would have happened had I left any out before Christmas!!

Christmas Night!!

The children were nestled,

all snug in their beds,

while visions of doggy bones danced in their heads.

Christmas Morning!! Marshall woke up about 6:30 and we told him to go back to bed until 7:00 while we came to. Are we mean or what?!

Then they patiently waited while John (bless his heart) got the sweet rolls and Christmas Casserole into the oven to bake while we unwrapped.

The kids got hot chocolate, bubble tape, play-doh (leftover from a 24 pack at Easter, haha! Santa and the E.B. are tight, you know.) and of course, an orange.

Pleased with the bubble tape. Christmas could have ended here.

His own "fackry guy"! (Factory, as in Lego Hero Factory) He was covetous of the one Grandpa gave Marshall when he was here, so he left me money to get Coen his own.

Marshall loved the hot chocolate pouches from his stocking...until Coen opened them and dumped them on Marshall's bed.

A very Merry, indeed.

The Nerf he wanted from Santa! (Live reaction at the bottom of post)

Coen was so excited to get his very own Ninjago guys from Grammy and Grandpa Kirk! No more sneaking big brother's.

The boys each gave each other a Lego set.

A thank you hug!

Coen was making a nice little pile as he opened his presents. The only problem was he went smallest to biggest and it tipped over right after I snapped this.

Coen got some Super Hero playsets thanks to a Hasbro Groupon several months ago. Love Groupon!!!

I've been skeptical about buying these Lego games - just more pieces to keep track of. But this is actually really cool and the other 3 Heroica games add to it! Highly recommend.

In the hopes of turning Marshall into a nerd, I also got him a physics workshop and an add-on set to his circuit board he got last year. Grammy got him a Zoob alien, too.

Grandma Sarah sent some wooden swords. The boys love them despite the bruises and cuts they've already accumulated.

Missing Grammy's toy castle, Marshall asked her for one for his house.

Uncle Brandon induced big smiles with this Ninjago helicopter!

Coen is a natural at sports-related things, so Santa thought a softball stand would be good.

Putting together the first of many more Lego sets. This one a Hero Factory from Grammy.

A new Razor scooter was hiding behind the tree for Marshall and we'll pass his 3 wheel one from 4 Christmases ago onto Coen.

Despite my misgivings about pulling the boys away from their new toys on Christmas to go to church at 11, it ended up not being the battle of tears I thought it would be. The boys knew ahead of time that we were going, I think that helped. It was also helpful that we got an early start and had 3 good hours before we had to start getting ready for church. They also knew it would JUST be sacrament, just 1 hour, then we could come home and spend the rest of the day playing. They did great and the service was beautiful. I always love the Christmas musical numbers.

P.S. That's the newly built Kansas City Temple!!

After church the boys helped Dash open the presents they each picked out for him. Marshall wanted to get him a pull toy and Coen wanted a "really BIIIIIG bone."

Dash was so excited about his new peanut butter flavored cane he didn't quite know what to do at first, but he had no time polishing it off in only TWO days! Come to think about it, that's about how long the candy canes on our tree lasted, too. Hmm.

Marshall showing Dash how to play tug-of-war.

And...the reaction to the gun he had been asking Santa for. I thought he would have been more excited.



We spent the afternoon playing with new toys, napping, and talking on the phone or Skyping with family.

That night we had a ham dinner that John made for us (again, bless his heart!). We watched our new copy of Kung Fu Panda 2 that Coen got from Uncle Brandon.

The next day was spent much the same way, playing and eating leftovers. What a wonderful Christmas!!

The Christmas Tree Hunt

We heard about a Christmas Tree farm in a small town called Holt just north of Kearney, where John works. We went up on Saturday to find our Christmas Tree! We took a ride on a trailer bed, pulled by a tractor, up the hill to the trees. It didn't take long to find one, as neither John nor I are too picky.

John got his man on and cut down our tree.

The boys watched with excitement as it came down.

Presenting: The Tree.

Us. It was a nice day out, but chilly when the wind picked up.

Coen helped John saw off some low branches while we waited for the tractor to come back for us.

The boys on the trailer on the way down the hill.

I took the boys inside to see Santa while John tied the tree to the car.

There was no line - score! Coen was fascinated by Santa and took his time talking to him.

At one point he started stroking Santa's beard, I don't think he had ever seen one so long before. He also told Santa he wanted "a gun with bullets" aka: Nerf. Santa looked really concerned until I translated Coen's wish.

Marshall took a minute to think about what he wanted to ask Santa for. I panicked when he mentioned something he hasn't ever talked about before - a Harry Potter Lego set. I was extremely relieved when Santa said he would leave "a surprise of some sort under the tree."

We all had a lot of fun cutting down our own tree for the first time and decided it was a new tradition for us!

Marshall turns SEVEN!!!

I can't believe it's been 7 years since we became parents! I just love being a mom and thank Marshall all the time for making me into one.

He was excited the big day was finally here! It's hard having both a birthday and Christmas in December - you get bored of all your toys and have to wait 11 months for new ones!

Presents in the morning.

Excited about the Lego Ninjago Battle Arena!

A cool looking Erector set from Grammy.

....And then my camera lens broke and you can tell the difference between my DSLR and point and shoot. I'm so sad :'( .....

The birthday boy chose bacon and waffles for breakfast! YUM!

He didn't get much say in dinner, we were still eating leftovers from Thanksgiving. He did request a banana cream pie though.

We sang the Marshall family birthday song!!

Leave it to Blogger to re-arrange my pictures! I love his expression here. He was opening 1 of 3 Cars 2 Lego sets, which he had been beeeeeegging for at the store for half the year!