Christmas Day

We began our Christmas morning with family prayer and then ate breakfast!?!  On Sundays we usually only eat one big meal after church, so technically our dinner the night before was peanut butter pie.  We were all pretty hungry when morning rolled around and the kids decided they wanted to eat before we opened presents.  Fine by me!  We had our traditional breakfast quiche that was prepared the night before, so all we had to do was heat it up.  

We arrived back in Canada on November 11th and have had snow since November 19th.  However, we got dumped on during the night and everything looked so pretty covered in white!

(Notice how deep the snow is.  Can you even see the difference from our front porch height and the sidewalk below it?)

Fat, fluffy snowflakes sprinkled down on us all throughout the day.

My best gifts under the tree!  I love these yearly family photos in front of our tree.  I hope I am always surrounded by my loved ones on Christmas day!

This year the Christmas Eve Elf brought us fuzzy socks with our pajamas!

Stocking time!

All of our kids got to open 5 gifts this year- one from Santa, their parents, their grandparents (the other grandparents sent lots of money which we bought new flannel sheets, fluffy blankets, and soft pillows with), the Montminy family, and we got 6 other gifts from family friends so each kid got to open one.

Ali's favorite gifts were her new Disney Princess dolls, My Little Ponies, and Kevin Henkes Mice books.

Hiram's favorite gifts were his Secret Life of Pets toys, new DVDs, and Piggie and Gerald books.

Teague's favorite gifts were his PJ Masks toys, Beanie Babies stuffies, and Ready Freddy books.

Gavin's favorite gifts were his Lego Ninjago weapons, Jedi/Sith Lightsaber kit, and his Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

Noé's favorite gifts were her new clothes, boots, and Wonder books.

Kaleb's favorite gifts were his music stand with several books of music for the piano and tenor sax, his Drakkar Noir cologne, and his Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard books.

Leonard's favorite gifts were his new shirt and ties and his new CAR!!

Well, we had to get another vehicle for Macy's arrival, so instead of upgrading the mini-van to a full-size van we got a second car that Len can use for work too.  It's a new 2018 Toyota Corolla.

Jennifer's favorite gifts were her Pandora bracelet and charms and her new KITCHEN APPLIANCES!!  We usually don't splurge like this, but our tenants destroyed so much it just made sense to start fresh.  Santa got a great deal too!

We can't forget sweet Macy.  She got a big teddy bear and the Sparkle Town Fairies books.

Another favorite gift was all the Christmas cards we received.  Thank you family and friends for remembering us!

The rest of the day was spent calling both sets of grandparents and Leonard's brothers; Rita came over in the afternoon to spend the rest of the day with us; we ate yummy finger foods we just popped in the oven whenever we were hungry; we ate cream puffs; we watched A Christmas Story; we built an IKEA book case; and we played Ticket to Ride (and I won big time!).  It was a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our Savior!