Christmas Day 2011

Wow, can you believe we slept till after 7! Tim had to go in Ashley's room to wake her. Then she hopped out of bed and made it down the stairs to the den. This is the first year I wrapped all the gifts and right away I realized I like gifts sitting out as if the chubby old man dropped them off like in past. Ashley is 14 ,nearing 15. But I think she still liked the joy of walking in the room and seeing her gifts all at once. Not saying she didn't enjoy opening her gifts. Maybe it was just me that misses the gifts laying out?

Ashley would open a gift for her then find one for me or her daddy to open. . She had me some cute gifts she chose herself. I think that made it special. Ashley surprised me with a cute carved angel ,,a precious moment :) She also had me a few scarfs! Tim's gifts from Ashley were a couple nice dress shirts and a huge box of Whitman samplers. We had more for each other like boat goodies for Tim ,binoculars for the boat and more. I got some neat things to help with headaches and best of all was my new IPHONE 4!!! Ashley got clothes, Harry Potter Lego's. A cool "PINK" boxing bag from her dad and lots of jewelry. He stocking had dark chocolate, ibook gift card and more. Aunt dot had sent Ashley an Itunes gift card the day before ,that was pretty exciting. I am sure there was more but for now that is all I can think of.

After all the gifts were opened we had a little to eat and scattered about enjoying our gifts. Then we had to prepare for church. This is the first year we actually went to church Christmas morning! It made it 100% more amazing! Church service was 10AM. We were kinda last minute getting there because I thought it was 10:30. Luckily we live 2 minutes away and got there just as service started. It was enjoyable with singing ,giving and remembering. Hoping for a better 2012 and praying for those who are going through tough times. 45 minutes later we were out in the parking lot. Ashley had a couple gifts to give. A gift card for Brother Lynn,a Birthday/Christmas gift for Andrew's little sister and a box of candy for his mom. Then we headed back home to prepare for my sister's visit and her family. I put the turkey on and prepared other goodies while Ashley set the table. Mom was at home working on the stuffing and Terry had made it in on Saturday( From Kansas MO)

Robin,Danny and Tate,Leo and Zachary got in around 2. Everyone else around 3. We ate a great dinner and then the boys got to tear open the gifts. It was impressive that they could wait that long! Ashley opened a few as well. Lego's of a ship and a harry Potter set I ordered earlier in the year. The kids had some toys to enjoy and entertain them. Mom had bought some Ninja head bands ,Ashley popped those out later and Leo transformed into a real ninja! Well, in his mind. They play for hours and eventually mom and my brothers left. We stayed up till around 11pm then headed off to bed. The boys were really good to stay in the upstairs guestroom and go fast to sleep. My head was starting to hurt. Probably a bit of staying up too late mxed in with the earlier noise,probably Ashley playing that chest of musical Christmas santas,elves etc banging on bells! I also am bad about not drinking enough water.. I wore my head wrap Tim gave me a couple days ago. I started feeling a bt better and the tylenol PM helped me to sleep.

Time to eat!!

Busy as bees finding those gifts to open!!