Do you hear what I hear?

I sure hope you don't hear what I do. Right before Maija was born KatieJo, Phillip and I went to the music store with my mother-in-law. On the way out KatieJo saw a pink and teal recorder and said that she'd like one. Well, since she hadn't really told me what she wanted for Christmas I made the decision to buy her one. And since I got her one, I of course had to get an orange one for Samuel and a blue on for Phillip. What a WISE decision that was! They have REALLY enjoyed them, but I'm sure I'll be sick of them soon enough!! (If you can't see in the picture, that's a recorder Phillip is trying to get Stuart to play.)

They also each got a pair of Crocs, which they've been dying for. And, they got a play room in the basement; we covered the floor in those mats you can put down in garages etc. I think the play room is more for me and my sanity, however they think it's great and they don't have to keep it quite as clean as they do thier rooms. They spent a large part of the morning moving all of their toys down stairs.

It's tradition in my family to have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. So, I spent the vast majority of the day yesterday cooking; and Stuart put the Turkey in at 12:30 with the plan to eat at about 5:30. Mind you our stove/oven is HORRIBLE. It is the only appliance the previous owners left in the house, and it is very clear as to why they left it. The oven door doesn't shut quite all the way and we had to buy a thermometer to find out what they temperature is. So, 6:30 rolled around last night and the turkey still wasn't done. So we opened presents instead (another tradition in my family much to Stuart's chagrin). Thankfully the turkey was done by 7:30 and so we had a REALLY late dinner, and no pie because we were stuffed by that time. We did drink egg nog while reading the Christmas story from the scriptures. We'll have pie this afternoon. This morning we had an awesome brunch, we had ham, a special egg dish and cinnamon rolls...YUM!

We have been very blessed this Christmas season, and we are very grateful that we have the opportunity to spend it with our family!

We hope you have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!