Christmas Day

After we went to an hour of church we came home and had a little mini photo shoot with the families.

 Our kids look really thrilled about taking a picture, don't they? I still thought they looked epseically handsome in their new sweaters, Tyler too.

 Our boys.

 Quincy, Jakoby, and Braxton.

 All the cousins...

 (Probably the best one, considering they are all actually looking in the same direction.)

 Grandparents and grandkids... this was especially tough...

 Almost everyone is looking.

 "If you want candy raise your hands." Ha ha

 Jakoby and Taylee.

 Trevor, Heather, Jakoby, and Taylee.

 And lastly, the boys with Grandma and Grandpa.

Christmas Morning.

All the adults agreed that 8:30AM would be the time we would let the kids open presents. I, personally, didn't think our kids would last that long in their beds and when 7:40 rolled around they were awake. We had to try and keep them downstairs until 8:00when everyone else's children seemed to be awake.

It was a little like controlled chaos. Everyone had an area with their stockings and then after we started into the presents under the tree, which lasted a good hour.

 You know what's funny? I asked  Quincy what his favorite present was and he said his magnifying glass. (Which ironically cost Santa the least amount of money to have his elves make.)

 Braxton got a Cars look and find book and immediately wanted to start looking at it.

 Quincy had to help Braxton keep focused on opening the rest of his gifts.

 Once he got to the gummy bears at the bottom of his stocking he had a one track mind and opening more stuff wasn't on the agenda. We had to bribe him with a gummy bear per present opened.

 The boys each got new beanies.

 And Quincy got his Cars 2 movie (which we've watched five times since the morning it was opened until now). He was pretty happy about this gift.

 This pile of paper is only about a third of what was in the living room that morning.

 Quincy also got a Cars puzzle story book.

 Rylie got a lot of technical toys-- a cell phone, and a laptop among other things. I think all the kids thought the laptop was pretty cool and had to take a break from their toys to check out her stuff.

 Braxton had to take a break to eat some Kix -- so he would have the energy to open more stuff.

 Grandma and Grandpa got the boys lots of clothing, which they were in great need of, but Quincy also asked for this football.

It was a little chaotic, but Christmas morning was an overall success.

Christmas Eve

After we came back from the exciting adventure with the police car we had our Christmas dinner. I didn't take any pictures during dinner, however we had the traditional ham and scalloped potatoes with all the sides.

When everyone was finished and dinner was cleaned up we all got together in the living room for a quick and condensed version of the story of Christ's birth. I think Quincy was the only one who made it through the whole story, but the rest of the kids were listening in their own way. :)

 When Aunt Heather was done reading all the grand kids got to open ONE present from Grandma and Grandpa.

 They were excited.

They all got NEW (matching) JAMMIES!

 Our attempts at getting picture of all the boys together...

 Their "silly faces".

 And we can't forget the girlie's and their cute jammies... sadly this is the only picture I have of them.

Afterwards it was time for bed so Santa could get to work delivering their presents.

Christmas Eve Ride in a Police Car

Derek's girlfriend Melissa let our boys come over to see her dad's police car. The boys all thought it was so cool. He turned on the lights, let them run all around the car, play with the spot light, sit in the driver seat, play with the turn signals, turn on the siren (I'm sure their neighbors appreciated that) and --most importantly-- take a ride in it.

 Yes, what could be more fun than taking a ride in the back of the police car on Christmas Eve? Especially when you don't have to sit buckled in a car seat, or a seat belt, and you get to go 65 MPH on the back country roads.

 In the eyes of all our boys... nothing was so cool as that ride! :)

Christmas Lights

We decided Thursday night to drive around and let the boys look at Christmas lights. I have to say, it was a bit of a challenge in a small (mostly) farming town to find some really spectacular lights, but we did manage to see some pretty good ones. We actually stopped by a guy's house that Tyler went to school with first. (It's the picture below.) The house was small, but it definitely was full of lots of lights. There was even music playing. It sort of made me laugh because we had just watched the movie 'Deck the Halls' which was a spoof on crazy neighbors and insane amounts of lights. I thought to myself, I wonder how the neighbors feel about that music?

 Both the boys thought it was pretty cool.

 The other thing I have to add is that Jakboy wanted to go look at lights too and so Heather, Trevor, Kent and Teesy were in their car leading the way. At one point I was laughing hysterically because Trevor was cruising through some of the neighborhoods so quickly our boys could hardly see the lights before we were passing them. We'd shout to Quincy 'Quick look out your window.... there's some more. Look fast and don't blink.' Ha ha ha. It was still fun.

 And since my pictures are from our car... they don't quite capture the better houses we did see.

 Everyone knows Santa rides around on a Harley in his spare time.

 I thought this one was cute with the Manger scene lit up in their yard. It seems rare that you see religious Christmas lights displayed in people's yards.

After everyone was done we drove past this last house. It has that sign that says "musical", yet we heard no music. Maybe they turn it off at night for their neighbor's sakes. Although, isn't that when people look at lights? I dunno. We still had lots of fun.