Christmas presents!!

Paige asked for and received a Hamster!!


Ben's nerf tag set!! Oh Joy..what fun!


Shelby LOVES Clothes!





It happened!! YES SIR!!! For the first time in SEVENTEEN YEARS, we had a white Christmas in Seattle and surrounds!! WAHOOOOO....

We had our big dinner on Christmas eve this year as Mark had to be in to work by noon on Christmas day. We have decided that this plan of eating on Christmas eve is MUCH nicer, as it makes Christmas day SOOO much more relaxing!! It is going to become a new family tradition!

So Christmas morning arrives and as usual, Mark and I are the first ones up (God saw fit to bless us with children who ALL like to sleep in! Thank you Heavenly Father!) and so we turned the lights on the tree, put on the Christmas music and woke up the kids! Shelby was quite pleased with all her new clothes (she got many many tops and hoodies from Aeropostle, her FAVE store) as well as the numerous other 'little' gifts (day by day calendar, sodoku rubix cube etc). Ben was thrilled with his nerf tag gun set for two..in fact, he and Mark spent Christmas eve playing army with it! (The kids are allowed to open one gift each on Christmas eve). Santa also left Ben another kind of nerf gun...so now it has become quite normal to be cooking, or at the computer, and have a nerf dart whiz by my head! :) Ben also received the usual assortment of legos and board games as those two things are his favorite things to play with. Paige absolutely FREAKED out, SCREAMING, YELLING, SCREAMING when she opened her hamster cage complete with gift card to petco to get a hamster. That was the ONLY thing she REALLY wanted for Christmas.....I will have to remember how wonderful her reaction was and how much we laughed every time I have to clean it's damn cage! hahaha.....(we have given her firm instructions that SHE will take care of it..and she will do fairly well for her age I know as she takes great care of her lizard!).Although she also received a pile of other things, I don't think she has touched any of them! She is all about her hamster! Around 11 am on Christmas morning, the snow began to bucket down! The kids were just amazed! Ben said 'THIS is the BEST Christmas EVER!" and he began to sing "I'm having a WHITE CHRISTMAS, just like the ones I never had before'...kids....they are so darn funny! It snowed all day..and in the afternoon the kids and I went and sledded down the hill that is actually our driveway...what the heck, we couldn't drive up it anyways so why NOT make it a sheet of ice!? hehehe.... It snowed all day..and made the day truly magical..

Mark came home in the morning on Boxing Day (if you are Canadian or British you know what I am talking about...if not, google it!). We went to town so Paige could pick out her beloved pet. She was originally going to get a Teddy Bear Hamster, but ended up choosing a 'panda bear hamster'. I have to admit, this thing is REALLY cute and VERY affectionate...no biting, and just LOVES to be held! Paige named it Wasabi (we wanted some sort of Chinese name as it is a Panda Bear Hamster!). Morpheus the cat is VERY interested in Wasabi!

Our dear friends, Paul and Ami and Lillybug came over in the evening for snacks (I made bruschetta and an olive tapenade) and a movie. They had gifts for all the kids and we had some for Lilly so there was another round of gifts. No wonder the kids love Chrismtas! :)

Here is the snow we woke up to on the 27th!!




I woke up this morning (December 27th) to see that it is once again snowing! Mark left the house at the butt crack of BEFORE dawn to go hunting. Only a few days left in deer season for bow hunting. Maybe he'll get something....he says its nicer to hunt when it is actually snowing...something about the deer all coming out to play! Shelbys stepfather is quite the hunter and has gotten four deer this year (I think four!) so Mark is looking forward to moving back to WI where there is no limit and you actually SEE deer! It has been a pretty bad season in WA this year, ALL the hunters are complaining. If he gets something, I will do another post!

I hope you all had as lovely a Christmas as we did!!

Hugs
Jaye