"Santa Didn't Come"

Top Ten Reasons Why Christmas Will Be Different for the Anderson Family This Year

10 – Rachel IS NOT pregnant!!!

9 – We will be giving the kids a toy for the backyard

8 – Ryan is walking and sort of talking

7 – We can use the threat of Santa Claus

6 – We have our first “school” Christmas party – oh how we love preschool

5 – We will be making Christmas memories with many incredible friends

4 – There are THREE little people pulling on the Christmas tree

3 – We will hang FIVE stockings on the fireplace

2 – Jackson walks around singing Christmas carols

1 – Lastly, FIVE of us, instead of four, wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2009

7:00am
Come on Jackson, let's go see if Santa came.... He runs out and comes to a screeching halt right before the tree, "Santa Didn't Come!". We then had to explain that Santa brought a few gifts and put them under the tree, but that there wasn't much more room because he also brought them a HOUSE! Now you would think I would have a picture of this great BIG HOUSE that Santa brought, but no one cared to inspect the house that early in the morning - it was way too cold. So we stayed inside and opened the few gifts under the tree.

This is one of my favorite pictures - too cool!

7:15am - yes, it went that quickly
We headed to the kitchen to begin baking Jesus' birthday cake. We baked it at home and told the kids we were bringing it to my parent's house for breakfast.

8:40am
We were late.... the plan was to be at my parent's house by 8am, but that didn't happen. The kids were sleepy and so that always makes things difficult in the morning. We did baths and put on new clean pj's because I didn't want their outfits to get messy from breakfast. The sad part is I left my camera charging at home, so I had to use my mom's camera.
Eating Jesus' Birthday Cake




Gift Time














10:30am
We headed back home to finish getting ready for the day, to put Andi down for a nap, and to have some time with the Andersons before we all went to the station. They all pitched in to buy the kids a kitchen and food that will be staying in their house. It's perfect. I have recent pictures I will add later, but believe me, this thing keeps them ALL BUSY!
It was so nice and relaxing as we ate more Jesus Birthday cake and opened more gifts and visited. There was something about this year... everyone was so in the right spirit and the love and fun was abundant.
Every year Annette buys personalized ornaments. Here's mine:

Jackson's is first day of school

Here they are inside the house setting up the kitchen.

I love Ryan's - the baby on a tractor.

12:00
This was Cosmo's LAST YEAR AT THE FIRE STATION! Yes, he retires THIS YEAR. This was a special time for us all, to go as a family to spend his last Christmas at the station. CRAZY! I can't imagine how it must have felt for him.... after all these years!

The kids were in heaven, can you tell?

Andi had stinky breath all day because she ate so much humus!!!!

It really was amazing being there and I will always remember our times at the station. Wow, how things are changing. We were enjoying ourselves so much, we stayed much longer than planned. 3:00pm rolled around, the time we were supposed to be at my grandparent's house, and we began to pack up. Curtis had stopped by shortly before we left, so once the kids were packed up, he came over to the car to say hi/bye. I LOVE the things Jackson says sometimes, so I had to document it when he said:
J: "Hey I know you."
C: "Oh yeah who am I?"
J: pointing to Tristan's family, "You're with them."
C: "YEah I came with them huh."
J: "Yeah I'm Jackson, I've been Jackson for a lot of years now."
I hope I got Jackson's quote just right, but I know it was something along those lines. Hilarious. All night everyone was asking him how long he had been Jackson!
We didn't get out of there for maybe another 20 minutes. How can you rush something like that? Then there was traffic....
4:40pm
We go to my grandparent's house to hit the second round of food. We were actually not too far behind the first to arrive, so it worked out well. Now what do I say about the food: homemade tamales, beans, rice, tacos, enchilladas - MY KIND OF MEAL!

Everyone humored me and participated in the White Elephant game again. It is always a fun way to gather round especially because we don't do traditional gift exchange. I love it. I love the values of our family, I love that we are all on the same page, and I love that we can come together without any stress or expectations. But of course, they still do spoil the kids.

Cousins

We all basically cleaned out our garages.

It was entertaining though...

Bri brought a picture of herself. It's funny, she and Elise are SO much alike. And both of them told me how their gift was the best. Bri's was the picture but I think Elise took the cake....

Grandpa is searching....

searching....

And he scores Elise's gift..... Grandma found it hilarious - well we all did

Elise didn't clean out her garage, she cleaned out her old dresser and she found.... a ponytail from a major haircut. How funny that grandpa was the one to get it.

I don't remember what freaked out Ryan - Christmas was too long ago.

9:00pm
Everyone left and we stayed behind so Andrew could help prepare the kitchen for the anniversary gift. They needed to get all the appliances out so Mark could start working on their tile first thing in the morning. The kids were SO good - man we got lucky.

This is the aftermath of Christmas. Saturday morning required a massive renovation. We needed to go through toys and re-organize SO much.

AAhhh, I'm so glad that's done!

The craziest thing about Christmas was the for the first time, Andi crawled the RIGHT way. No more worm for her!!!

It was a very Merry Christmas. We are so grateful for the family that loves and supports us and makes every effort possible to make memories with our kids. Really, could you ask for anything else? We are truly blessed! We know how much our Redeemer loves us because we feel His love through those around us. Merry Christmas and let's hope next year, Santa really shows up :)