Christmas

The kids got to see Santa at our Ward Christmas breakfast, but the three youngest were the only ones who would sit on his lap. I'm not ready to have kids that are too old for Santa!

Declan just lights up around the jolly man. So sweet!

Nacho endured Grace's festive modeling shoot. This one was entitled "Santa Paws."

I spent a night in SLC with my parents when I went over to see my new baby niece, and my dad very graciously gave me his ticket to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert. It was wonderful and a great night out with my mom.

Grace had her first band concert as a clarinetist. I was amazed at what those band teachers did in three months with 200 kids and ten different instruments that the kids had never played. Amazing!

We spent a very fun night at the foster family Christmas party with some of our favorite company ever. It's nice to be around other families who are just as insane as us, and who don't judge the kids' crazy behavior because their families are just as crazy as ours! I met a family in line for dinner who had seven kids all under the age of seven!

DFS spoiled us with dinner, a magic show, presents, and a visit from Santa!

On Christmas Eve, we were lucky to have Nana and Papa with us. They were very brave to come to our house on what might just be the craziest kid day of the year! We kept busy with a visit from Vinny's grandma, aunt, and uncle, and I had some craft projects on hand to keep anxious hands busy, but there was still a very high level of pure crazy in the house. While getting a big dinner ready, I sent the kids down to the dress up closet to prepare their costumes for the nativity. And what a nativity it was!

Here's Vinny, our Thor-sheep:

And we also had Sam as the Captain America-shepherd, Declan as Joseph, Grace as Mary, Nacho as a camel, Liam as a wise man, and the poor baby doll Jesus, who probably got shaken baby syndrome before the play was finished. This was the year that I decided to give up trying to have the spirit in our house on Christmas Eve. We'll have to learn the true meaning of Christmas during Family Home Evenings in December, because they are just way too wound up to attempt it that night and I always feel like a bad mother when my well-intentioned plans go awry. They did sit and watch the "Joy to the World" DVD that we watched afterwards before opening their brother/sister gifts. But for the most part, all I could do was laugh.

Because, seriously, what's funnier than this nativity scene?

After leaving out cookies and milk for Santa, the kids finally dropped off to sleep. Grace, Liam, and Sam all have their bedrooms downstairs and for some reason, we had the genius idea to put my parents down there, too. But we always make the kids go out to the tree together and there was no way for them to come back and wake Garreth and me up without walking past the presents. The first ones awake were Sam and Liam..... at 4 am. They woke up my mom, who snuck to our bedroom to see if we wanted to wake everyone else up, too. Of course not! We sent word that they needed to go back to sleep, that we weren't going to wake up Declan and Vinny that early. (How mean are we at 4 am?!) Of course, they couldn't go back to sleep (and neither could Nana and Papa!) so a little before six, the morning officially began.

And what a morning it was! Here's our Christmas morning 2011 in pictures.