Christmas came and went!

Christmas - the most wonderful time of the year, and unfortunately, I got SICK!  In all honesty, I was glad it was me instead of the kids because we still got to enjoy a very fun Christmas and even though I didn't have a lot of energy, it was still very enjoyable to watch the kids get so excited!  And luckily Lee was able play with them and take care of things while I rested!  Unfortunately this sickness has sure been a rough one though - I had a bad fever on Boxing Day, and have been feeling really crappy all the rest of the week!  I just want my head to feel normal again so I can stop wasting all this time we have had with the whole family and with beautiful weather as well.  Hopefully it will be gone SOON!

Anyway, now to summarize the Christmas events!

On Christmas Eve, we all (my entire family) went over to my parents house for a wonderful ham dinner and program.  My Cooper Grandparents were even there to share it with us.  The kids had lots of fun with their cousins, and the evening was full of some good laughs... mostly inspired by my Dad of course!  He had some pretty good magic tricks this year, in fact, probably his best ones yet, and he didn't even mess them up this year!  The best was that he had this special wallet that lit on fire when he opened it, and he used it as a joke that he had really "burned through his cash". Ha ha.  He also performed on the Ocarina!  Not too shabby. 

 Most of the grandkids performed a number or two as well.  Dakota and Griffin sang "Up on the Housetop", complete with actions that Griffin had learned in his school Christmas concert!  It was cute.  Dakota and Mason also had a skit that they had practised, which was, interesting, to say the least!  Mason also planned to play the piano, but unfortunately he forgot his piano music.

 And of course the finale and highlight of all is the kids acting out the Nativity pageant.  My Mom always has a great assortment of costumes, and it is fun to watch them get excited to pick who they want to be.  Griffin was Joseph, a very handsome one I might add, (he even said so when he saw the pictures of himself) and it was sweet to watch him put his arm around Riley, who was Mary.  I love the picture of both of their faces when they are looking down at baby Jesus!  They are so excited and cute!

 

 And Dakota and Holli were angels, which - if you look at the pictures, I can't figure out what inspired Dakota's body language, but she seems to be acting as more of an angel of death rather than an angel bringing glad tidings of joy.  She laughed when she saw the pictures too and doesn't know what she was thinking!!

 And we even had a new babe to play baby Jesus this year, thanks to baby Eli!  How cute!

 Mason played a humble role this year, of a donkey.  And he was a good sport about the obviously many sizes too small lion body costume and interesting head wrap!

 He even "let" uncle Jeff ride him! ha ha

Anyway, good times were had by all.

 And then it was time to open the Christmas PJs!!  All of my kids were THRILLED!  Even Scarlett was happy to have new PJs to put on.  It was always one of my favorite traditions as well.

 And then it was home to bed to get sleep before Santa came.  We got started around 8:15 in the morning, thanks to four anxious kids that couldn't sleep any longer!  Look at the excitement on their faces before we let them come downstairs!  It's always been a tradition to take a picture on the stairs - kinda funny now that I think about it!

 And each of the kids were VERY happy with what Santa brought them, and with the gifts that we had bought them as well!  I did almost all of my shopping online this year which was great!  I think I went a bit overboard though, as it's hard to tell how much you have until it arrived at my house!  Oops.  It's so fun for me though!
Santa brought Scarlett a doll that can walk, Mason got a Kobo e-reader, Griffin got a remote control car, and Dakota got a Journey Doll.  I love Griffin's face when I told him I wanted to take a picture of him with his gift - he was being "SO cool" since he thought the truck was pretty wicked!!

 I also love the face of Mason's that I captured in this next photo!  He was thrilled to get Halo lego!!  And Scarlett was hilarious with her "minion" shirt!  She loves the movie Despicable Me, and always asks for "Minions"!!  She was actually adorable opening all of her gifts - she really got into it, and every time she finished getting a gift open, she said "Yay!"  It was so sweet.  All of the kids were actually really grateful and said thank you over and over.  I was impressed.

 Grandma and Grandpa came over as we were just finishing up, and brought a bunch more gifts!!  Including a really nice fooseball table for us!  It's awesome.  It was a wonderful Christmas, and the kids got SPOILED.  They spent the rest of their day playing with their new toys, skating on our ice rink, and then playing with cousins.  We had my parents and Jocelyn and Jeff's and their family over for Christmas turkey dinner!  It was DELICIOUS!!  I was very grateful for a good husband who gave up his nap and did most of the work preparing and cleaning up the house before everyone came.  I was just feeling terribly sick and had given up to go get some sleep.  He was wonderful! :)