Christmas Season 2011

Now that Christmas 2011 has come and gone, I suppose it's time to update the ol' blog. I hope everyone had a fun Christmas. As usual we had a busy Christmas season, attending multiple family Christmas gatherings.

The gauntlet of family Christmas gatherings was kicked off with the Kacharos family Christmas party. Believe it or not, this was the only picture I took the entire night. Not sure how that happened, but before I knew it the party was winding down and I hadn't picked up my camera. Anyway, here's a shot of the kids, who had gone WILD with excitement about getting to play with each other and made for an impossible situation of getting 5 kids to look at the camera at the same time! I have NO idea what is up with Luke and Chloe's faces!

The next day we attended a family gathering at Chris' aunt's house, but in my mad rush to get out the door for church, (the party was immediately following church services) I forgot my camera....so no pics of that one.

Next, we move on to Christmas Eve at Nana and Pop's house. As you can see, the kids were bursting with excitement. The next few pics are my futile attempts at getting a good picture of the kids in front of the Christmas tree. This one is the best attempt. The look on Chloe's face is priceless.

This one is okay

This one says, "I'm tired of taking pictures, so I'm just going to act silly."
This one full of forced smiles....

Finally time to open some presents....

Kaylyn's "Just Dance 3" game. She's been begging for this one for the past 3 months....the perfect game for her.

Kaylyn's animal shoes....there are no words.....

Next, it was time for these two kiddos to get home to get all snuggled in their beds, with visions of gum drops dancing in their heads.

Because my children have made it a habit of getting up in the middle of the night and sneaking to see what Santa has brought, I was tired of not getting to see their initial reaction to their presents. So, I decided to have a little talk with Santa and asked him to wrap ALL of their presents this year. Oh, and he could not put names on any of the presents. This little prank led to some frustrated kiddos at 3 a.m.!

Santa did leave them a little note telling them who's presents were wrapped in red and who's were in green.

The big hits this year were iPod touches. Both kids have been begging for one for months. I am very thankful Santa brought these, now I can have my iphone back!

As you can see by their faces, Santa did good!

Kaylyn's drums. Short story here: Kaylyn has been begging for a set of drums, literally for 6 months! My reaction to her request: "#1: Why??? and #2: ABSOLUTELY NOT!" I admit, I give in to a lot of my children's requests, but drums???....not going to happen in this house! We already have too many noisemakers and their names are: Kaylyn and Luke!

After checking out Santa's goodies, it was time to pack up and head to my Grandmother's house for more Christmas fun. The kids got to open MORE presents and the adults got to play dirty Santa.

Well, that's a wrap to our fun family Christmas! Wishing everyone a very happy 2012!