Merry Christmas!

Brynn and Abby were excited to check the Norad Tracker when they woke up to make sure Santa had indeed made his stop. 

This is a terrible quality photo, we really need to invest in an SLR instead of always using our iPhones, but I wanted to capture it because of what happened.  Isaac gave Aaron a Penguin Dreamlight and Aaron was really excited about it.  Santa also gave Aaron a Bear Dreamlight.  Without any prompting from us Aaron gave the Bear to Isaac.  Isaac was so happy, but for me it was best Christmas present ever, to see Aaron do something so kind for his brother. 

Brynn and Abby also had a lot of fun thinking about that thing that would please the other.  They both succeeded.  We have a deal with Santa, he fills the stocking and we give our kids the rest of their presents.  Santa fills them with all sorts of junk that I would never buy (darn that Santa!) as well as a few other little things. 

Brynn picked up some beautiful jewelry for me.  She is so sweet.

Isaac was about as thrilled to get this little Darth Maul action figure as anything else that day.

Aaron's big gift were a couple of remote control Lego Trains.  We spent the next two days putting them together.  It was a great bonding time.  The cutest part about giving him this gift was that he couldn't believe that Joseph and I used our money to buy it for him.  He kept asking us if we bought it with our money and when we told him "yes!" he kept saying over and over, "I can't believe you used your own money to buy this for me."  He's wanted it for a couple of years, but I think we must have told him he was too young and it was too expensive.  He was so pleased.  We loved witnessing his happiness.

Abby made me an awesome calendar that I keep in my laundry room. 

I'm not sure who this came from, but it makes me laugh everytime I see it.

Our big family gift this year was something that we have talked about and mulled over for quite a few years.  Joe hasn't wanted to have video games, and we got away with it for a very long time.  It really helped that we lived in California and had really mild, or rather really no winter.  Since moving to Utah, it gets hard for the kids to get physical activity when it's so cold outside (you can only last so long out there).  After lots of studying, we decided to do the Xbox Kinect so that they had to use their bodies to manipulate the games.  It has been the best gift.  When the kids play they are running, dancing, sweating, and often they have sore muscles the next day.  We've even had quite a bit of fun with it ourlselves. 

Grandma and Grandpa wanted to make sure they could see the kids open their presents so we Skyped Christmas morning.  We ended up staying home all day to enjoy Christmas at our house as a family.  They treated the kids with lots of fun games for the Kinect.  After opening presents we enjoyed our Quiche and English Scones with Devonshire Cream.  We were rich fooded out after that and were so excited to get back to our healthier meals. 

It was a beautiful White Christmas Day!

I spent the first two days in my pajamas putting together the train.  After a couple of days I emerged from my Lego cacoon, showered and started eating normal food.