Our Christmas Day!

We had an absolute BLAST with Christmas this year, the kids loved what they got (from "Santa" & us) they also loved the photo we caught of Santa leaving gifts under our tree :D
We had a great day - I may have gotten a little "snap happy", but in 20 years I'll be patting myself on the back, I know it!
Also, the "big" story of my day was my wonderful husband who had known for weeks that all I wanted was a "Cruicut" - an amazing tool designed for scrapbookers mainly, to be able to 'cut' cute pictures, letters, designs etc. professionally, easily & quickly - and you can also so vinyl letters!!!
I had gone on, and on and on for days, singing praises about how wonderful this machine was - knowing full well that if my hubby would get it for me, I'd be able to read his signs and signals. No matter how hard he tried to hide it. Well, bigger fool me - I was oblivious! I honestly got caught up in the rush of Black Friday, giveaways, coupons, getting a good deal - what my kids want as opossed   to what their friends have, and I forgot and honestly believed I was not going to get it. It was too much money, money that should be going on the kids, or neighbors - something else rather than "me". OMGOSH WAS I WRONG!
My husband set up a treasure hunt type deal, my brother & I used to do this when we were bored in New Zealand growing up - I've done it with my kids and passed the love of it along to them, and C knew how much I absolutely adore doing that kind of thing - so he set one up for me - and then took various pics of me running around the house in my p.j's searching for the hidden treasure! The 1st one is me looking by the encyclopedias! (Dig my purple jammies eh?)

The 2nd one is in the kitchen, and the last one was in his garage (well, his side of the garage, it was hidden under a mexican blanket he brought when he was down there and I COULD NOT believe he had gotten it for me - I was so focused on everyone else, I forgot about me. 2 seconds after this shot, I burst into tears and snuggled into his arms to cry openly!

Here's some more of our fantastic day!

 1: Ava & Daddy, opening "Tink" as she calls her - a Tinkerbell toy.

2: Jahmal with his bulletbike, he found it for sale in our old neighborhood, worked for the money, & a friend of mines husband worked on it until it worked!

3:Aliya with her "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" game - she was dying to play this, and being a 3rd grader is bound & determined to beat this game!

4:Quintyn got his Lego Rockband ... which was confusing to him as we didn't have a PS3 (whoops on Mom for that one!) I played it off as a "Oh, I though it was for the Ninetendo! I'm sorry" so that's the "Gee Thanks Mom" look on his face :D

5:Quintyn, Aliya & Gracie lined up with some gifts

6:Gracie showing me a trick her gift does

7: Ava playing with a "giveaway win!!" the Plan Toys Duck - she LOVED it - at first the 'quack' gave her a fright, but as soon as she got over that, she was quacking all over the house amid our calls to "Open another gift Ava!" The only time she put it down was when I distracted her with cookies, and Craig grabbed it and hid it, lol

8:Craig with his gift from me. A Photo book of our beautiful family!

9:Ava opening a ballerina dress from Old Navy, which is something she was really coverting! She also looks adorable in it, so I'll have to snap some pics of her in that too!

All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas, we should have put more Christ in it - I'm sad we didn't do that, we did have a family feel Christmas though, so that makes it worth it! Next year, we will be doing more for others (secret Santa type stuff) & definitely more Christ like things. I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas though, like we did!

Now for the New Year .... I need to start thinking of some resolutions ... so I guess my first one is "Next Christmas I will make it more about Christ, and less about Commericial junk"

Let me know if you have any good ones!

And this is, of course (albeit part of my last post) the infamous "Santa caught" picture! Although my kids wondered why he's smiling (Shouldn't you have been asleep Mom? Why is he smiling at you?) We told the kids it was Dads motion camera used for hunting, and that he was smiling because he knew full well it was there & decided to 'humor' us all. Looks great though, the people at "Capture Santa" do a great job I think!