Christmas 2012

Monday - December 24, 2012
We haven't hardly had any snow yet this year.  We said a prayer last week and asked Heavenly Father to give us some snow for Christmas.  We prayed that it would start snowing on the 24th, so we could still make it to our Moser Family Christmas Party, but it would be nice and snowy on Christmas Eve.  Heavenly Father answered our prayer!  The weather on the 23rd wasn't bad, so we could have gone to our Christmas party, but Roger was worn out from work and tired of making the drive back and forth to and home from Salt Lake, so we decided to miss the party.  The morning of Christmas Eve, we were so excited when we woke up and saw that there was a lot of snow on the ground!

Parker and Roger went outside to play in it.  Parker built himself a little fort to hide behind while Roger tried to throw snowballs at him, using Parker's snowball maker toy.  After that, Parker built a snowman and Roger decided to shovel the driveway.

 Alissa and Brinley were having too much fun playing their game on the Wii.

 This is Roger after he discovered that someone had stole our snow shovel.  Parker admitted that he had left it in the front yard.  We looked everywhere and it is nowhere to be found.  I'm assuming it got stolen, but who knows.  So, in this picture Roger is showing me the shovel that he will have to use to shovel the driveway.  Haha!  He's so funny!

On Christmas Eve, we let the kids open their Christmas Pajamas.  After they put their jammies on, they each got to pick one present from under the tree to open.  Then we tried something different.  We had been talking about fun Christmas traditions and Alissa suggested that we start a new one.  She suggested that after we open our pajamas, we put them on, then watch a Christmas movie while eating Apple Crisp.  Also, she helped me come up with another idea.  I suggested that Roger and I get to open new pajamas on Christmas Eve also.  Alissa suggested that the kids will pick out the pajamas for us.  I liked the idea.  I think that would be a lot of fun.  We didn't have the money to do that one this year, but definitely we will do it next year. 

We had a lot of fun eating apple crisp and watching our movie.  We hope that the movie would make the kids tired, and maybe they would fall asleep during it, so bedtime would be easy.  Parker fell asleep during it, but woke up at the end full of energy and excitement.  They were still just as excited when they went to bed.

  This is what it looked like after Santa came.

Tuesday - December 25, 2012

I was so tired and had such a hard time waking up on Christmas morning.  Before the kids went to bed, Roger told them that we would not open presents any earlier than 7:00am.  In the morning, roger woke me up a little before 7:00.  The kids were still asleep, but Roger was wide awake.  He had been awake for a little while.  He wanted me to wake up and he wanted to go wake the kids up.  I kept telling him, "Not yet, just let me get a little more sleep."  Not long after Roger started trying to wake me up, Parker woke up and came in our room.  He told us that him and his sisters made a deal that whoever woke up first would wake the others.  So Parker went to wake up his sisters.  Of course, they were instantly wide awake and excited to go open their presents.  They kept asking if they could just hold their stockings while they waited for me.  They promised that they wouldn't look inside, they just wanted to hold them.  I thought that was funny, but  I still said no.  Of course, they were going to look inside of them and I didn't want to miss out on that.  I wanted to be ready with the camera and camcorder.  I hurried to get out of bed and get ready, so all of the excitement could start.  I set up the camcorder, got the camera ready, and then it began.....  The kids wanted to see what was in their stockings first.  They were excited that there was some stuff in Mommy and Daddy's stockings also.  Our stockings had some yummy candy in it.  the kids' stockings had candy and toys.

We tried another thing different this year.  Instead of the kids just running, grabbing, and unwrapping as quickly as they can, we had them each grab a gift and open it at the same time.  Then they each showed off what they had gotten and we did it all over again until all of the gifts were opened.  I liked doing it that way this year, because we didn't have as big of a Christmas as we normally do.  It was a good way to make the opening of our gifts last longer.

Roger's Mom came after we finished opening our gifts.  She brought some gifts and treats to eat.  We really enjoyed her visit.  We were going to watch a movie, but instead, Roger and his mom got into a heated political debate.  That was craziness!  Alissa came over to me and said, "Dad always tells me that I shouldn't argue with my mom."  I told her that she'd have to remind him of that as soon as she gets a chance.  Their debate lasted for at least an hour.  Eventually they calmed down and conversation became normal again, but it was getting late, so Joyce had to leave.  She didn't want to be driving home in the dark.