Our Christmas

I know that Christmas isn't about presents, except for Christ's gift to us, but there are still presents involved at our house, and that is what a lot of our pictures revolve around.  They also are about family and it was fun to have all of my children home this year.

This is the annual picture of the race up the stairs.  Teddy won, which is obvious since he is headed back down.  I can't remember which person actually won.

This is Dan with his stocking stuff.

Trisa, Kayli, Jake, Connor and Chewy.

The dogs like snuggling with Kayli

The boys all being fascinated that Connor pulled a knife out of his sweats pocket and was using it to open a present.  Apparently he slept with the knife in his pocket.

Connor holding his present from Trisa who, obviously, is the gift.

Trisa is holding her gift from Connor.  It is a Harry Potter puzzle.  Once she does it she needs to flip it over and read the note written on the back!  Tia told us, for future reference, not to ever do that for her.  She does not like doing puzzles.

Jake is opening his present from Tia and Mike.  They wrapped his new game in saran wrap (under the wrapping paper) a LOT of times.

This present was taken downstairs before it was opened since that is where it goes.  It is a big bean bag that expanded once it got out of the box.  It's supposed to be something like 4 ft. x 4 ft. x 3 ft.

Connor, Mike and Jake with the box and Tia and Trisa in the background.

In the background it is fairly easy to see where all of the kids had a "sleep" over on Christmas Eve -- except Dan who wanted to sleep in his bed, but who didn't have much success.

Jake and his Christmas goods.  Jake hasn't really loved books his whole life, but that is all he asked for this year, though he got the jacket he is wearing and some flannel sheets because he likes warm things.

Trisa and her Christmas gifts.

Connor and his gifts (including the plaid he's wearing)

Another picture of Connor.  The lighting wasn't as good the other way, but this way missed the picture of Trisa.

Kayli and her presents, plus the dogs.  She got a Woody doll because she had one she loved when she was younger and she thinks we got rid of it without her permission (which maybe happened but we don't remember doing that.  I liked Woody!).  Now she has a bigger, newer one.

Dan got exactly what he wanted.  A drawing pad to go with the computer.  Minor flaw on my part.  Our computer is too old and doesn't have a way to connect to his drawing pad.  We'll now be getting another present for us all!

Mike and his presents.

Dan and the rest of his presents.  The coat is new too.  He lost his old one.

Tia and her presents.

Tia painted this for me.  It is a paint by numbers but I think it is still really impressive.  She knows that I love birds and so she picked this just for me and spent a lot of time doing it.  YAY!

I forgot to take a picture of Derek or me with our stuff.  We didn't need anything and didn't get much.  I bought myself an owl and two cardinals for decoration and I got Derek a Mr. Spock to go with a Captain Kirk he got years ago.  He also got socks and pants he can turn in to shorts and we both got books that I bought :-).  I got a couple of movies in my stocking that we'll enjoy watching too.

I hope you all had a happy Christmas no matter how many presents you did or didn't get and that you got to spend it with people you love.