It's Christmas Day!

It's here! It's here! It's finally here!

The kids woke up earlier than I thought they would and were pretty disappointed they had to wait a few minutes for Mom and Dad to get ready for the day.

Lexi wasn't too sure what was going on, but knew it must be something neat. She was all smiles.

Santa didn't disappoint!

Waiting...

Okay, okay, you can come down!

Checking out the stockings first!

Lance got a new pair of Heelys.

And a Stranger Things t-shirt. He's seriously obsessed with this show!

The big family gift this year was a hooverboard! It didn't take Jude and Lance long to figure out how to use it.

Sweet drone, Lance!

The latest craze for toys is this little monkey called a Fingerling. It sits on your finger and "interacts" with you by making noise and blinking it's eyes. It's actually pretty cute. Santa managed to snag a few for Lily, Lexi, and Cole.

The boys all got bows! Lance's is a Dude Perfect one and Jude and Cole each got one designed by the original NERF guy. George and Lance had a shoot-off to see which one was "better".

While both pretty awesome and powerful, I think the NERF one won out!


With Christmas morning a success, it was onto Christmas dinner with the family!

(Lance asked me to take his picture with his sweet bow and sword.)

Christmas dinner was a success! It's always fun to get the extended family together!

Cousin time!

Our attempt at a cousin picture:

Close enough.

Where was Bender during all of this? Getting spoiled! The family we left him with adores him and lets him get away with all kinds of things like sleeping on the bed with them and snuggling on the couch. He's one lucky dog!

Late-night games with family:

I love that Callie is growing up and hanging out with the adults more. It's a neat dynamic.

Merry Christmas from Florida! We missed you like crazy this year!

Remember the bow and arrows Jude and Cole got for Christmas? We learned the hard way it's an outside-only toy. Oops! I was impressed the foam-tipped arrow made it all the way through the pane of glass in the basement!

Merry Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's almost here!

We celebrated Allen's birthday this year by doing laser tag in Ashburn on December 23rd. This was Lily's first time doing it and while I don't think she tagged too many people, she sure had fun!

Testing out the wind tunnel:

Waiting to go in. Nate was in town, too!

After laser tag, we ran over to Laura's house to spend time with the Allred side. Jason was in town for about 36 hours before heading to Florida. It's always so good to see him! It was weird not having Mom and Glenn's house to visit, but Laura and Tyler were good to host.

Each of the kids got to open one gift from an Aunt or Uncle. They were super excited!

Amy made these Undertale items for Lance and he was THRILLED! He refused to take that hat off for days.

Love our family!


Christmas Eve we spent at the Scholz. Lots of Eric's family came over, too, and it was neat to see them.

Lexi thought the "Grinch juice" was amazing!

Uncle Eric showed the kids how to track Santa's progress and where he was in the world at the time. It was cool to see him cover so much ground in such a short amount of time! The kids were mesmerized. You could even see Rudolph leading the sleigh!

Aunt Jen got the girls these adorable unicorn blankets for Christmas. They thought they were pretty neat!

Afterwards, we drove back to Grandmom and Pop Pop's house to get ready for bed and read our traditional "The Night Before Christmas" bedtime story. I think the kids were a little too excited to really pay attention.

And of course, we had to set out cookies and milk for Santa!

We'll see you in the morning!!