Christmas Day!!

The kids let us sleep until about 6:45am, which was pretty great, but still came bright and early after Emma's late night escapades!  But everyone was in good spirits, and we didn't have anybody grumpy or ill, so it was a great morning!!

You can see in our traditional lineup that Whitney is finally making some headway on Katelyn!  They are the closest in height they have been in their lives!

Cute Emma seeing the presents, and Owen with his big prize he has wanted for years!

Whitney finding a poster and Maris jumping up and down with excitement over her karaoke machine--"It's even better than the one I wanted!!" (a cheap little Frozen one)

Big girls taking things out of their stockings one at a time, and Maris with a new volleyball.

After stockings and breakfast and the Nativity video, we did sibling and cousin gifts first. Whitney opening a cousin gift: (also, the big thing beside her is a desk that "Santa's elves thought she would enjoy building herself" 

Emma loved her art kit from Caleb so much that she opened and started using it right away.  Which was perfect because it occupied her in between turns of opening presents!

And this was one of Katelyn's coolest presents; a daily Shakespearean insults calendar from Whitney and Owen! Whitney found it online and asked Owen to go in with her on it because it was a little more than she wanted to pay.  He readily agreed and thinks the insults are hilarious of course. Just see how happy Whitney is seeing her open it!

The kids all got masks in their stockings haha. Only in 2020, we hope haha!

Katelyn got her Thespian jacket, so cool!

Owen got a giant baby yoda (Grogu) squishmallow, and the girls got cute little stuffed animals of him, so of course now they want to play "baby yoda family" haha.

Katelyn and Owen surprised Whitney with a book she wanted, and I surprised Owen with Lego storage boxes from IKEA.

Just a classic moment, everyone watching the youngest child unwrap their present painfully slowly!

a flash forward to lunchtime- Eric trying out his new french fry maker, he loves it!

and Lego time!!! Whit was the only one who didn't get any Legos (by request!) so she had fun helping Maris while I helped Emma and Eric made fries for us all.

The girls rocking out to Maris' new karaoke machine lol

now back to unwrapping- Maris and Emma got some cool dishes and mixing items from Grammy!

Katelyn got adorable measuring cups, and Maris got really cool erasable pens from hazel.

Katelyn got chocolates and a book from Natalie, and Emma sat up on this perch for a good part of the morning, it was cute.

Whitney seriously is good at gift giving.  She surprised Owen with a Minecraft book that he loves. And Emma got Maris this Lisa Frank art kit.

Eric's biggest surprise was this sweet knife from my parents!

Also he got these bow and arrows from the kids.  

And I was there too!  Here I am in my Christmas pajamas with the coolest gift Whitney made me- she bought this wood, painted it and added a little laminated part- it says "Gone Running Will Be Back at _____ " and has a space to write a time with a whiteboard marker!  So cute, I love it!  I also got wonderful, perfect gifts from Mary and Brad, thoughtful and super useful gifts from Eric, and really sweet sentimental gifts from my parents.  A cross rock necklace!  And a cookbook that was my Grandma's! Were my favorites.

Owen was thrilled with BBQ tools from Grammy, and a giant Lion from Grandma.

My mom also made aprons for all the grandkids, they love having their names on them!  And gave them cookbooks.  More on that in the next post!

Emma made the cutest faces the whole time, here were a couple.

And here's Katelyn looking all teenager-y in her cool jacket and scrunchie....I think she has barely taken that jacket off since!

Christmas afternoon we went up to Highland and had more presents to open!

More excited faces!

That plus a delicious Christmas dinner and games with Kurtis and Lauren, rounded out a delightful Christmas Day.