Merry Christmas!!!

While visions of presents danced in our heads all night, one of our little sugarplum fairies wasn't quite ready to wake up like her brother was... but at the first mention of seeing if Santa left anything, both KK and AJ were running to the living room...

We couldn't believe our eyes at all the presents (mommy and daddy wait to put all their presents out the night before Christmas too to keep prying fingers away)... Santa left four presents wrapped in "Santa" paper and a mysterious ribbon that led from our chimney to our back door...

Upon following the ribbon outside to the back door, we discovered a TRAMPOLINE! 

Needless to say the kids were jumping up and down one minute and starting in awe the next.  (Sorry the picture is in the dark, we took it later that night as we forgot in all the excitement to do it in the moment).  While poor Santa and a special elf built that trampoline in the freezing rain, we never heard a peep!  Way to go Santa!

After one last look in the freezing cold at our amazing gift, we rushed back inside to tend to our other gifts... KK and AJ had met Santa earlier this week and asked him o' so sweetly for a Trampoline, a monster truck and tinker toys.  Wow did Santa deliver! 

 

We couldn't believe how he got it just right! 

Of course, Mommy and Daddy did a great job too... plasma cars with our names on it, tonka trucks (that really dump)...

Daddy got lots of TCU gear.. in fact every present Daddy received had TCU on it somewhere :-)

 

Mommy got such sweet gifts from Daddy and KK and AJ!  PJ's (a fav gift of mine), a beautiful necklace with earrings, and books (a love a good book).

There were lots of smiles and hugs as we dug into to see just what each gift held...

 

AJ was pumped about his "bad guy" cars.  A few weeks ago he was playing with his McQueen and Finn McMissle and looked up and proclaimed "I need some bad guys to chase".  Well little batman, now you have them!  He was so excited he just yelled "Yea Bad Guys"!

KK surprised daddy by picking out a gift all by herself... a little something for his dresser :-)

Daddy surprised the family with a Wii - wowsers!

AJ got a few other awesome things, such as a "guy" doll cause there were too many girl dolls in the house - another quirky comment that made us laugh recently.  He also got some great shirts with Batman and Superman on them that he was excited to have.

KK was also happy - she got a Taylor Swift dress up dress with a dvd of her last concert tour.  To go along with the theme of singing, she also got her favorite movies High School Musical 1, 2 & 3!  And of course, my girly girl got some new clothes :-)  Her favorites!

 

Please don't think these pictures were our entire day or our day's focus, just some highlights while I remembered to grab the camera in between presents.  The rest of our day was spent talking on the phone and computer to our families that were far away and sharing moments with them.  We went to church and got to spend time on Christmas Day celebrating the birth of our Savior with our church, singing songs that we have been singing for the past few weeks.  Somehow this morning, knowing what happened 2,000 years ago in a cave in Bethlehem, the songs just seemed more.  More sweet, more joyous... more!  We ended our day having a Christmas dinner with our awesome cousins and their extended family: eating treats, laughing and watching the kids chase each other around.  To sum it up, a great day spent loving one another and enjoying and appreciating one another. 

Here is our Christmas picture for 2011 ~ a little scruffy but happy.  And really, what else can you ask for?

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!  May the Joy we feel this day for our Savior's birth stay within us every day of the year!