Coming down the jiminey

This year we were invited to spend Christmas with Dad, Lisa and the girls. It had been quite a few years since we had Christmas at my dad's so we were really excited. We went over on Christmas eve day and just hung out and visited with everybody and let the kids play. Emma played on the floor with toys hoping to get Wilbur's attention in any way she could. Randomly he would come by and try to lick her all over. Their affection for each other is definitely mutual. Ave, Hunter and Alec rotated between the trampoline, the Wii, and playing with toys. The rest of us ate and visited and did more snacking. Later that evening Dad had come up with a new trivia game for us to play. Involving these cute little boxes, prize money, and Christmas trivia questions. It was something fun and different and definitely got us all laughing. Grandma let the kids make sugar cookies for Santa. Well we were supposed to bring the cookie cutters for the cookies until I realized that we didn't have any cookie cutters so we improvised. Now when I say improvised I mean we sort of let the kids have free creative range on the size and shape of their cookies. I about died of laughter when Dad pulled them out of the oven and they looked like this.... wow really? They were huge. Seeing the kids eyes when they saw them was even more hilarious. After baths and pajamas it was almost time for bed. Avery was pretty excited about dad's fireplace so that Santa could come down the jiminey. It is so cute she has been calling it a jiminey instead of a chimney all month long. It is hard to contain a giggle when ever she comes up and starts talking to me about Santa and how he will fit down the jiminey and why our house has no jiminey. She knelt down by the fireplace and kept look up into it talking about him and how excited she was that he was coming. She told me that she was going to go for a ride in his sleigh. Deke and I reviewed the rules with her about riding with Santa including that she couldn't lean over the edge and look down below. Wide eyed she told us she wouldn't because she didn't want to fall out. Instead she would sit on Santa's lap. When I went to tuck Hunter in he told me that he hoped that this would be the year that he saw Santa. I love the way he believes I wanted nothing more than for him to be able to see him. Christmas is so magical with the kids and the anticipation and the excitement they feel. They headed off to bed and the rest of us stayed up and talked until 2:30 in the morning. We finally put ourselves to bed only to be awakened by the kids at 5:30 eager and ready to see if Santa had come. There was no way that I was waking up the baby that early so we let her sleep and headed out to open gifts. Hunter was so excited to see a Wii Harry Potter game, a Hot Wheels tub racing track, LEGO's and Bakugan's as some of his presents under the tree. I think however one of his favorite things were the two science experiments that Santa brought him. Growing a crystal tree and making your own marbles. Those will be a lot of fun. Avery got her Baby Alive whom she named Allie. She also got dress up clothes, a princess computer, pink LEGO's and plenty of other fun girl stuff. Her favorite thing of course was the pair of purple Ariel and pair of purple rhinestone heels she got. Instantly everything else was put on hold while she tried them both on and walked around in them as if testing them out. After all the unwrapping was done we ate some yummy omelets and headed back to bed for a little extra snoozing. A couple of hours later Miss E was up and it was her turn to open presents. She was pretty intrigued by the wrapping paper and really got into the process of tearing it up. Some things she got included some new blankies, a glow worm, some bath toys, a nightlight singing thing for her crib and some other fun toys. Her favorite thing was this little gumball machine toy that you drop ball into and then when you pull on the handle they swirl down and come rolling out. It also plays music and lights up. She loves it and it is really helping her to want to crawl. For the rest of the day we just ate and played with the kids and played games and visited and just relaxed. It was a really nice Christmas. The kids are all at such fun stages and it was so neat to watch them and share in their excitement of the day. The next morning we went over and got together with all the extended family at Bly and Lou's house. We had lunch, the boys played rugby, we played games and again more fun visiting. We have such an awesome family. Merry Christmas everyone!!!