Christmas 2007

We had a wonderful Christmas. The fact that both our children were really anticipating it and understanding what it was all about, made it even better! We had Christmas Eve dinner at Lynn's house and the kids were able to work off SOME of their energy.

Grandma and Grandpa gave all families some nice presents. We got a Grandma Christmas quilt, a nice metal Family sign, and a nice rectangular piece of paper.

We were glad to make it back alright because of the snow coming down and the slick streets.


When we got home, we were able to get the kids settled down for a moment to read the Christmas story in Luke 2. Maybe we'll try acting it out next year, but they were a little too wild this time. We also read The Night Before Christmas. Emily & Ella each got to open one present - Emily got Ariel PJs and Ella got Dora PJs. Ella also opened Tanna's present - a baby and water pen book! Emily opened Sloane's present - a "popcorn" doll and carnival game box. After that, we all basically watched them run across the living room about 100 times with their new dolls. Better let them get their energy out, we thought. They actually slept pretty good. (However, mom wasn't so lucky. I think Grandma had a hard night too, surprise, surprise!) I heard Emily playing in her bed around 6:30, so I went to keep her company. When 7:00 FINALLY came, I went to check on G&G. Grandma was waiting at the bottom of the stairs! We all watched as E&E came out of their room to see the loot! Santa had come, left presents, filled stockings, eaten cookies and milk and the reindeer had eaten the carrots. Emily & Ella were excited for each of those discoveries! Santa had left an unwrapped bike for Emily, but I don't think Emily quite understood that it was for her, we had to coax her over to it! They loved their stockings filled with toys, candy, breakfast foods and toothbrush and toothpaste. We let them pick which Santa gift they wanted first, and of course they each chose the biggest! Ella got a doll set with twin dolls, twin stroller, twin highchairs, twin bassinet, etc.
Grandpa was in charge of putting it all together - and by 9:30 Ella was able to finally play with it!
Emily got a folding princess doll house. I think each of them could have just played with those two gifts the entire day, but we eventually talked them into opening the rest of the presents! They started the day off with wanting to play with each gift, but later on, just got excited opening them. We finally finished around 11:00. They got a ton of loot!! Steve and I each got each other some little gifts, but our big gift was the new flooring in the kitchen and the carpeting. We got G&G an Asp family calendar and a 2007 Family scrapbook that all the kids contributed to.



After G&G left to visit others, we just let E&E play until naptime. They were very worn out! We had a nice Christmas pork chop dinner that night with G&G. We even got G&G to play Rook with us that night! It was a very nice Christmas and we were glad to share it with Grandma and Grandpa!

(Fortunately for you, we do more video taping than pictures on Christmas!)