::christmas report::

We had a great Christmas day this year. I've been struggling with a cold ever since the beginning of Dec, and up until Christmas I felt pretty bad, but luckily I felt good on the day itself.
Here are the boys at the table eating our semi-traditional breakfast of Captain Crunch. Kris told me a while back that it was a tradition in his family to eat that for breakfast Christmas morning, but his mom tells me that's not so--I think he was just trying to work captain crunch in to the deal somehow. I personally prefer German pancakes, but that's ok--I lean more towards my family's tradition of a big breakfast brunchy feast on Christmas morning. I'm thinking maybe one of these days we can combine all the traditions into one big wonderful breakfast buffet that includes chocolate.

They're wearing their Christmas eve PJs. Max's have dogs dressed as reindeer all over them, and Kris has Red Sox pants. Pretty fun. My mom got me some PJs too, but I don't have a photo of me, of course.
Max also has all his santa and stocking toys at the table--important to have entertainment while eating, naturally.

Sultan got in on the fun with a squeaky crawdad. He actually seems to like it which is surprising. He's not really a toys kind of guy.

Here's the little guitar that Santa brought to the family.

I think it's a half size little nylon string. We're going to give Max some guitar lessons starting next month, we'll see how it goes.
Santa also likes to leave notes with very elaborately disguised handwriting. I'm not really sure how long that's going to be feasible. Somebody should maybe take some calligraphy lessons.

We had a great morning. We gave Max a little clock and told him he wasn't allowed to leave his room or bother us until 7AM. He woke up right around 7 we think and was up and about at around 7:15. It was nice not to be waked at the crack of dawn.

Our families took good care of us. I wish we could've seen them all in person, but it was great to be able to open gifts from them even though we're so far away.
We camped out on the floor and had fun with the gifts.

Check out my awesome socks my sis-in-law and bro gave me.

This happens to be the only photo of me taken the whole day, so enjoy it.
Kelly & Lechelle sent us Lego Star Wars, which has been much enjoyed this week by the men of the house.

Max was finally given the whoopie cushion he's been dreaming of. Kris got it for him. I had told him I didn't want one in the house. But oh well, isn't that what dads do? Ralphie certainly wouldn't have gotten his red rider beebee gun without his dad. But Kris, don't get any ideas. If you get my son a beebee gun you're "out of the family."

We spent time in the morning assembling toys. Max got a fabulous remote control semi truck from his Grandma which took quite a while to put together. It's very cool.

After that we got to do some video chatting with both of our families.
Mine:

My family opened their gifts on the chat which was fun because then I could see their reactions and it was almost like really being there--almost.
Kris's fam:

Our chatting situation is always crowded and chaotic:

Max had at least one meltdown with screaming while "on air" and had to get sent to his room--but what would a true video chat be without that?

We had some friends come over in the afternoon and eat a late lunch. It was fun because their boys get along with Max well and we got to have a little grown up time. I didn't get any pictures of that though.
But I did get pictures of the yummy sugar cookies I made for the event.

And Max's favorites, the penguins. The other little boys loved them too. I would've made all penguins if I'd have known how popular they were going to be.

Max ended up with a lot of wheeled contraptions. He likes them.
We got a set of little cars at Disney World that are vehicles from a bunch of the popular rides. He really enjoys them.

It was a great day. It was nice to be together, to talk to our families. It was nice to feel the Christmas spirit and think about the Savior. It was nice to know that we're loved by so many wonderful people.
And it was nice to go to bed that night, well worn out.