christmas day

Myla was right next to our bed…

“Dad, can I go open my presents?”

“No, wait ten more minutes…”

“Dad, can I go see now?”

“no, ten more minutes…”

“Dad, now?”

Finally, at about 8:20 am, she was given permission…first she had to wake up her other siblings!

We really can’t complain, although santa and mrs. claus were really tired and had been up till about 2am, it was 8:20 am, and I’m sure many other families had been awake long before us!

Christmas morning is just so magical to me. I was pretty much an only child growing up, and never opened presents on christmas morning because with divorced parents…my Mom would have Christmas a couple weeks early or we opened everything on Christmas eve…then I would spend my Christmas with my Dad somewhere else with his side of the family and Dad’s {at least mine} didn’t follow through with the whole “christmas morning/santa” thing…so, now as a second time around, I LOVE sharing the excitement with my kids.

Since Dusty and I have been married we have agreed on a few christmas’s to NOT buy each other any gifts, either we were broke, saving money, already working on a big project, etc. etc. This year was one of those years. We have been redecorating our bedroom and agreed, no christmas gifts. I should know my husband better by now because every year we’ve agreed to this he has STILL had christmas gifts for me on christmas morning. For some reason, I fall for it everytime. I’m a total fool. But this year, I made him SWEAR no gifts.

and he did it again! The funny things was, I was so excited rushing into the room trying to not miss the kids’ reactions to anything that I walked right past this gorgeous scooter! ummm, it’s pretty big to just MISS it! I still can’t believe he did this. Yet, it’s so him. I LOVE yellow, and it has a custom chocolate leather seat! It’s yummy, it’s so cute! Each time we have lived in Asia we have owned scooters to cruise around on and I have always wanted one here in the U.S. I can’t wait for good weather to break this out and, take my kdis for rides. It’s going to be so much fun! {thank you babe, you have always spoiled me.}

Sela and KJ were the most fun, Myla and Kiana have known the truth about santa for a while but still get overwhelmed with the anticipation of the event.

I’m pretty sure Sela doesn’t understand what’s taking place but was eyes-wide-open in amazement at what was waiting for her-

KJ was pretty calm, and groggy considering he had stayed up so late the night before and had to mentally adjust to remember what was happening! The funny thing is, he received a couple gifts from santa that were not things he asked santa for. Therefore, he wasn’t interested in them. He gave away the things he didn’t ask for and didn’t understand why he had gotten them! See the big RC car? Yeah, that’s Myla’s now… Dusty and I also gave him an “ihome” for his room, he didn’t want it, it’s in our room now! bonus! hehe. There was one surprise gift he did like though. We found this site that lets you create a custom bobbleheads from your photo. You can pick any picture, and we opted for one where he has the biggest and cheesiest grin. His face was totally shocked when he opened it, he didn’t totally understand at first and had that scowl look but then I saw his eyes widen and he just burst out laughing. I’m sure Myla will end up with that too, the prince to all of her princesses. But, the things he had asked for: the race track, 9 hot wheels, and transformers…those were like gold! If you’re looking for funny gifts to make your kids laugh, have you tried putting custom socks on Santa Socks?



myla! my only child who could not wait to see what santa had brought.
my only child who did not ask for anything, but had forgotten a couple of things she’d really wanted all year…
a drum set
and her own golf clubs!


she thought the purple golf balls were uber cool
Kiana {on the good list twice, i’m sure} had also forgotten a couple of things she requested through-out this year…
she had asked for a digital camera, that Dusty and I gave her as a gift…
but Santa brought her own beginner’s sewing machine, a along with a sewing basket full of goodies to start with a
nd an IMOD scooter. This scooter comes equipped with outlets for your I-pod so you can listen to tunes while you’re out cruising around. She also got 3 custom vinyl stickers in her stocking to decorate her scooter! so fun! Now if the snow would melt just a little so we could both drive our scooters!

a boston red sox “B” in Kiana’s signature colors-


sometimes I wish we had more family around for the holidays, but I also love that we have no obligations. We hang out in our pyjama’s all day, take as long as we want to open gifts, start baking the food for our christmas dinner whenever we want.

One of our most incredible gifts this year was from our good friends Jared & Lissette. Jared is our I.T. guy at Pro Look and a very long time friend. About 4 years ago he started a project for me of transfering all our home video tapes to DVD’s. This year he went above and beyond and gave us our home videos all on DVDs with the cutest menu’s, background music, pictures on the covers, I actually can’t describe here how amazing they are. So, in our matching red pyjama’s on Christmas day we spent a huge chunk of our time all snuggled up on the couch watching home videos. It was so fun.

we also rode the scooters around the house. yes. inside. around the house. am I crazy for letting them do this?!?
Sela has not stopped playing with her little kitchen YET, and it will stay in our kitchen so she can always be cooking right next to me…
We had a yummy ham dinner, and half of us cleaned up and half were still in the jammies! hehe!We always have traditional “crackers” before our meal-

Then we were off to the theater!
It’s also tradition in our family to go to the movies on Christmas day-evening.
I snapped of picture of sela here carrying her little kids treat box, so cute.
She has officially entered the world-of-theater and has now sat through the entire last 3 movies we have seen! woo-hoo! I am so happy. She does still wiggle around a little and change who’s lap she is sitting on, but she stays interested in the movie, and that’s what we’ve been waiting for!We met up with two other families who are great friends, the Howell’s and Gleeds. We saw, “Bedtime Stories,” and everyone loved it! Good work Disney!That was our Christmas, it was perfect.