Our Merry Christmas

 We had a great Christmas this year. We are so lucky to have special friends in our lives to share the Holidays with. It helps us not feel quite as sad when we can not be with our families! We had so much fun on Christmas Eve as we ate great food and laughed and relaxed. Hailey as an angel!!

 My little Lucy Angel!!!

 On Christmas Eve we did the traditional opening of new jammies.  The girls have been begging for footed pajamas. I just know my girls too well though and I knew that it would be a waste of money because they wouldn't like their feet getting so hot. I hear them complain about being hot at night even in nightgowns, so using my better judgement, we went for the normal fuzzy, cozy winter jammies....with slippers. They love them and haven't been sad about not getting the footy ones!

Isabella went first!

 Then Lucy. This was her first gift she has ever opened...Talon was a great helper!

 Hailey is obviously happy about hers!

 I shouldn't have bought Talon any jammies...it was just too sad to think about not getting him any when the rest of the family would be...BUT he hasn't worn them. Actually...he wore them for about 15 minutes on Christmas Eve and then wanted them off!!! This boy has the fullest drawer filled with the CUTEST pajamas (mostly hand-me-downs from his cousins Noah and Levi!) He will wear them on really good nights but he usually wants a T-shirt and his shield shorts (luckily we have 3 different pairs of the shield shorts-or shorts with a little shield printed on the leg!) Oh well...not the first time that I have wasted money on clothes that my children refuse to wear. Grrrrr!

 I loved my pajamas...I knew I would since I picked them out myself!

 John's polar bear pajamas rocked!

 We had to model our new stylish sleepers!

 Talon is thinking that his momma is CrAAAzzzZyyY!

 Santa came and didn't disappoint. Our Christmas tree is looking a little puny. I can't wait to have a pretty, FULL, pre-lit tree. For now...this will have to do for aleast another year.

 The stockings were SO packed and filled with love and deliciousness!

 Christmas Morning!! Happy as can be and ready to PARTAY!

 I took 4 pictures of Lucy and they all turned out like this....hmm...she must take after her daddy in the photo taking department. It seems like his eyes are always closed too!

 As the presents under the tree thinned out, we realized that there were a few gifts that had not been opened and that were not under the tree. I could NOT figure out where in the world those gifts had gone (and they were the ones that we were the most excited about giving the kids!!) After searching all day on Christmas, and not being able to find them I gave up and hoped that we hadn't accidentally thrown them away at some point. To make a long story short....they all turned up. One bag of gifts was hiding in my closet (I checked there 3 times!!!) John found them the first time he looked there! And two were under our bed (also checked there a few times!) SO WEIRD. The under the bed gifts were just discovered a few days ago...and will now be given as Valentine's gifts instead :)!

 After church, we came home and got our Christmas pajamas back on! We ate brown sugared ham and yummy potatoes and my sweet friend Heidi's Garlic Green Bean recipe. We had Sparkling Grape Juice also.

The rest of our Christmas Break was spent playing the new Xbox 360 Kinect and enjoying all of the new toys that filled our house. It was nice to have John home for a few days! New Years Eve was spent sleep training our youngest two (Lucy and Talon) and it was filled with a lot of crying! We went to bed early in anticipation for the long night ahead..which it was! BUT, they are going to sleep all by themselves now and Talon is sleeping in his own bed ALL NIGHT LONG! I occasionally have to walk him to the bathroom and tuck him back in but he is doing great. Lucy is now great at putting herself to sleep at a normal sleeping hour (between 6 and 7) and although she still wakes up quite a bit at night to nurse, she is still doing so much better than she was before when she wanted to be nursing ALL NIGHT and wanted to be snuggled up right next to me. She is in her own crib in Hailey's room. It's nice to have "our" room back!