Christmas...2012

Christmas morning didn't start till 7:00 am this year!!

At least that's what time Ashton called me into his room. When I went in, he said he'd been up since 5:38, and that he'd "Heard Santa!" "First whipping the reindeer twice!" "Then walking down the hall." So he got up and went and listened at the door and almost went out, but decided he better not. :) I loved listening to him that morning and imagining how he felt with his heart racing...so excited!

He had to go in and wake up Gunnar, then I made them stop and take a picture at the top of the stairs before they ran downstairs.

 But not before they had seen a couple things and ran around excitedly talking about what they got! I was sad we didn't have the video camera running to capture all that first excitement, but I was still half asleep.
Anyway they were both so, so excited that Christmas was finally here! And about what Santa, and Mom & Dad had left out for them.

Ashton got his Lego Harry Potter DS game, and Gunnar got Yoshi's Island for the DS that we got from Hunter for him.

 They both also got these new snowboards...

And they got Mario Kart for the wii to share. We got them the Razor 360 bikes and a few other things that we wrapped up.

 They unwrapped everything pretty quickly, then we had our cinnamon rolls and waited for Grandma, Grandpa Harry and Aunt Kelli to arrive, then opened the rest of the gifts with them.

Funny gift Grandpa Harry made for Aunt Kelli...

 I surprised Lars with a new fly tying vice..

Beautiful picture Kelli took of Grandma :)

  I loved Grandma & Grandpa Harry's gift to them...Grandma collected LOTS of rocks in her yard over the past months and Grandpa Harry polished them, then she put them in these cute boxes for them with cute little notes. They love to collect rocks!

And they each got another new Webkinz...a frog for Ashton and a pig for Gunnar. Gunnar didn't put his new pig (who he named Boinky) down all day!

 And Aunt Kelli got them some much needed Lego building plates...

They also loved their new Harry Potter lego sets from Grandma & Grandpa in Texas!

I had started to have a sore throat on Christmas Eve and by Christmas morning felt pretty yucky.

It was so nice to just relax at home all day. We made a big dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, deviled eggs, rolls, broccoli, stuffing (that Grandpa brought, as well as her special dessert), and I can't remember what else...but it all turned out great!
Then Lars took the boys up to the big sledding hill to try out their new snowboards...which by the way turned out to be very frustrating to them...mostly Ashton because he couldn't get the hang of it, so they didn't last too long. They had first tried them out in our back yard...

While they were gone to the big hill.. Mom, Harry, Kelli and I watched Emmett Otter and all of us but Kelli fell asleep. I was really not feeling good by that point.
Anyway, not too much later they all had to head back to Evanston so the boys just played the rest of the day before bed.
We love Christmas!