Christmas Day

Christmas morning, like every other household anticipating Santa, dawned early- earlier than either of the parents in this house wanted it to anyway. To prevent the kids from rushing headlong into the living room to inspect Santa's proffered gifts, we closed our shoji door. It's made of paper-- that'll be ample protection, right? Well, stop anticipating something dreadful, it was and the door's fine. 

So we all got up (at who knows what hour) and dove right in---

The one bummer about Christmas morning was the lack of decent lighting. Forgive the unfocused pictures. 

Roman loves watching the garbage truck come every week... so naturally Santa hooked him up with his very own. It was a hit.

He wouldn't be a boy if he didn't love weapons and violence. Of course, that being said, the girls each got these little guns too and they ran around shooting things and each other. After spending a considerable amount of time and frustration trying to figure out how to load them anyway.

The girls loved their wings. And we started watching the Harry Potter movies, so naturally I knew we had to have the books. I mean, Santa knew.

Does this even need a caption?

Our oh-so-thoughtful neighbors, Jimmy and Mei gave each of the kids gifts as well. This train was perfect.... the boy LOVES trains. Who am I kidding... anything with wheels!

I've been promising for quite some time (years?) to turn our blog into books. So I worked my butt off and got the first year of the blog put into book format just in time for Christmas. I don't think I've ever managed a gift that garnered this big of smile/reaction! I had one printed for my dad and Wayne and Zan as well.

As much as he loves things with wheels, this is a boy who really loves a good gecko. Avril capitalized on that and hooked him up with what I think was his absolute favorite- gauging by the time he spent playing and the number of times he said "Deh-doh!" 

I think everyone got a turn being "gotten" by the "deh-doh!"

Derek scored some major points for his gadget/tech-loving wife here... I'm loving it already and spent a good deal of the day finding awesome apps to download and play with. I'm so excited to tap into this thing- but a little overwhelmed and worried I won't maximize it's potential! Doesn't make me love it any less, though...

I told you everyone got "got" by the "deh-doh"!

Little faery princesses out for a trial flight and some magic.

Last year Christmas seemed pretty anti-climactic after the morning madness. I decided that like most things in life it should be remedied with food. Yes, that's right. I'm a commie cause I didn't do a big Christmas dinner. Well stop judging me, because I've reformed my anti-American/Christian ways and knocked myself out this year making this:

(Go ahead and go grab a napkin so you don't ruin your computer for heaven's sake. It's the internet. We'll wait for you.)

It was so fun to get to use the china and fancy up the kitchen. I haven't been cooking as much as I used to lately since it's so hot, so that was fun, too!

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm so grateful for this wonderful holiday, the opportunity to give and share with family. We definitely miss ours this holiday season and wish we didn't have an ocean between us. And more than anything I'm grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who was willing to send his perfect Son to us to lead us back to Him.