Christmas Morning

Our Christmas Morning started at 6:30 when Terry and I finally had to WAKE THE KID UP!!! I don't know about you but it was all I could do as a little kid to stay in bed past 3 A.M. But our kids, not so much. We have had to wake them up every year of their lives because we are too excited and can't wait anymore!We told the kids the night before that when they woke up they could unload their stockings . . .and check out what Santa brought for them. . .but since church was at 9 we would wait on the rest of the presents until we came home.
I have had the tradition of a cereal box for Christmas breakfast since I was little. And my kids love it too. Their VERY OWN box of SUGAR cereal to eat Christmas morning. Normally this is just fine but having the kids scarf a couple bowls of sugary cereal 20 minutes before expecting them to sit still for an hour at church was not such a great plan. Luckily I was with the choir and Terry was left with all five of them (a good opportunity for him to appreciate my EVERY Sunday struggle) although not entirely fair because he did have my parents there helping him :)
After breakfast we got our Christmas duds on and headed to church. It was such a wonderful Sabbath morning!As soon as we got home it took about 5 seconds for the kids to be out of their Sunday clothes and back in jammies (cuz you can't open Christmas presents in anything but!)
We did our family gift exchange first. This is my favorite part. Each year the kids are assigned a sibling they need to MAKE a Christmas gift for. Right now it is a lot of work for Terry and I but we help the kids all along the way with whatever project they have picked out and it is so fun to see how excited they are to GIVE what they made.
This year Dalyn was assigned Janie. He made her a matching game using pictures of all the cousins from my side and our family (that was only a total of 10). He painted the wood and cut and glued all the pictures, found a little box it would all fit in and wrapped it himself, she LOVES it!
Raegan was assigned Jillian and made her a little night dress from scrap fleece we had left over. I helped her with the pattern and she cut it out and did (most of) the sewing. The entire time she was working on it she was reminding me how much she LOVES sewing and that she should do it more often :) This is the best shot of five when we finally just called it good enough . . .Ryan had Dalyn and made him these super cool stilts (of course with help from dad) He did the sanding and paining all on his own. This one is a hit with all the kids . . . Janie had Raegan and made her some fancy pencils for school. She designed every one and I helped with the hot gluing . . .
Jilli was in charge of Ryan so of course Terry and I did the majority of her gift to him, tin can stilts. She did design the out side entirely on her own :)

Later that afternoon we headed to papa and nanas for a super yummy Christmas dinner and to exchange gifts there. It was indeed a very Merry Christmas!