Christmas finally came!

Well, as I'm sure you're all aware, Christmas finally came! Yay! I was so excited! In the last few days leading up to it, we made lots of different goodies, like these chocolates. They were pretty fun, but only looked cute from this far away. Always nice to find another thing I don't have the gift for. Sigh, but it was fun. Then Jared requested I make this for him to take to work:

Oh, it's SO yummy! I'll have to post that recipe sometime. If you don't know, I have this major thing for almonds, and this is an almond puff pastry, so, well, there just aren't words for it! :o)

The forecast was calling for a huge storm for Christmas Eve, so Jared's work canceled their patients, so he didn't even have to go in. Bonus! Too bad he spent half the day digging out from this:

The kids played and played while he shoveled, and I did some clean-up inside. Jared thought he better even shovel off the balcony and also decided to put the patio furniture in the shed, so he tossed it over into the yard, and then the kids discovered it was fun to play on:

Christmas Eve we were invited to a party, so when we got home we just hurried and put them in their jammies and snapped this picture. You can't see in this picture, but the cookies for Santa weren't even frosted. We assured the kids that Santa would still like them!

They were pretty excited about this, and sweet little Sara was insisting that I open the gift from them first. That's what she's trying to find in this picture. I was surprised they didn't just want to open the biggest first, but John stuck with his plan to open one I had put under the tree a few days before.

She looks a little scared in this picture, but she really loved the dollhouse. A lot. Even though she kept saying that she "barely" wanted it. She kept saying that about all things she got, meaning she really wanted them, but it was funny how much that changed the meaning.

And the start of the dinosaurs...

I think this next one is my favorite picture. We let them buy movies for each other, and this was after Sara opened hers from John. A totally unprompted hug! Aw.

One happy kid:
And another with a cute cat from G and G Morton:


Check out this face on John when he opened the Legos...

Long story, but I couldn't decide what Legos to get him. They have a duplo dinosaur set, but I thought it was too babyish. They have a set that you build a big stegosaur with, but the Lego guys at the store said it was pretty advanced and it was $70, so I didn't buy then. I kept looking. I bought two other sets at other times and returned them, after deciding he didn't want Legos as much as I wanted to get them for him, so I was going to get a smaller set and have more $ for dinosaurs. Anyway, the time got down to it, and every store by me was out of the basic sets, so I had the kids with me at the Mall of America when I bought this. I told them it was for a "little boy" (giving them the idea of someone else, but I didn't lie, I swear) who still needed a present, but I did ask John what he thought, expecting him to say he could only hope he'd get something so great. Well, he told me he wouldn't want it. What?! That's what you get when you ask a five-year-old what they think, I guess! I figured I'd be able to make him see the light, so I bought it anyway. So, that's why he's looking at me like that. By the way, he did like them later, but I think I had more fun with them than he did. Sigh.

Since John's love of dinosaurs really started to thrive when we borrowed Prehistoric Planet from the Gotbergs, that's the movie Santa thought John had to have..Sara got Mulan, but happend to be opening this kitty when I was snapping this shot...

A book from G and G Morton--now that's a genuine smile!
John with his goods:

And Sara:

Notice the fire--that was awesome. We've really enjoyed the fireplace so far. It's so cozy. And here's the marbleworks toy I raved about. Jared and I built the marble maze to show them kind of what to do, and it was cool. The whole day we just played and played. The kids never even got dressed. It was great.


Sara got these cute mini princess coloring books from Chase:

Oh, and the cinnamon rolls I'd been wanting to make for a long time. I never plan ahead well enough, so these were not ready by breakfast time, but they were still a welcome afternoon snack.

I didn't want to plan food (other than the cinnamon rolls), so I was planning to get Chinese take-out like we did last year for our Kung-Fu Panda Christmas. Well, all the Chinese places around were closed, except one that I finally found. It was close, though!

See, they are playing with the Legos, but still with their other favorites at the same time. Funny monkeys!

Anyway, it was a really nice Christmas, and now I need to re-arrange things to make room for new toys. Yay.

Oh, I almost forgot two funny things from that day. The kids got electric toothbrushes in their stockings, and Sara misunderstood the powers of it, I guess. Because when John started brushing his teeth and I was still opening Sara's, she told him to let go of it, because it could brush his teeth by itself! Ha! Then that night she said in her prayers, "Please bless President Jesus." She said that right after she said bless President Monson, so maybe that short-circuited her brain. Anyway, it was funny.

Hope you all had a great Christmas!