Yes, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are full of gifts in our family but I received a gift this year that I didn't expect...SNOW! It rarely snows in our part of Oklahoma...usually if something cold is coming from the sky, during winter, it is ice. For the last 13 years I have spent the majority of it in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado....snowy beautiful places. I've gotten quite used to the cold dry air. This past year has been an adjustment for me trying to get used to the weather that I grew up in. It was such a wonderful surprise to be able to spend Christmas in Oklahoma almost like we were in one of my snowy states that I love so much.
Here is Hyrum at MeMaw and Poppy's house on Christmas day. Hryum doesn't show a lot of emotion on his face most of the time but I knew he was truly loving the snow when all the other kids went inside because it was too cold and he stayed outside just pushing the snow around with his hands.
Here is Shaylee and Brigham with Hyrum before they went inside. It wasn't "packing snow" but they tried their hardest to throw it anyway.
Here is Brigham soon after he woke up that morning at our house. He wanted to go outside to play in the snow (I think he ate more of it than played in it). I went out with him to take some pictures when I noticed animal tracks. The night before he and Levi put out reindeer food for Santa's reindeer (we decided that they needed energy to be able to get to the Moore house to bring gifts to Shaylee, Elton, and Allie). I used this opportunity to work Brigham's imagination. I asked him is he thought those were reindeer footprints. We ended up finding even more prints and he decided that they were definitely from Santa's friends.
The night before we all gathered at Nanny and Poppy's house to open up gifts. Here is Chuck opening his gifts....from Chuck! Chuck always gets Chuck the best gifts! I love the kid's expression trying to figure out what is going on!
Levi patiently waiting to open his gifts.
I got these two pictures mixed up in their order but here is Grandpa teasing Brigham. He had been telling him all night that I said that Grandpa (a.k.a Poppy) could have all the presents. As the presents were slowly being brought to Brigham, of course Poppy had to keep at it. I love Brigham's face! Before Brigham opened up this Bakugan tin Poppy was trying to convince Brigham that is was really cookies in there. Brigham was so happy to prove Poppy wrong!
We didn't get any good pictures of us in the act but here is a picture of Nanny and Poppy together after Dad figured out that we had a new team mate to pester him. Every year Dad and Chuck pass out the presents and every year April and I put back the presents while Dad isn't looking and wait to see how long it takes him to figure it out. Of course he knows to expect it each year so its not so secret anymore. This time Ronald was helping me and when Mom started in on it...he kept watching me and Ronald knowing what we were doing when I said, "You know, sometimes it is the one person you least expect." I really wish I would have gotten a picture of his face when he realized his wife was in on it!
It has been a wonderful few days trying to get all of the boy's gifts in their places in our very tiny home. They were completely spoiled by all of their grandparents but instead of getting stressed about it, I have used it as an opportunity to clean out their room of old toys that they don't really play much with anymore. There are still way to many toys and it has nothing to do with what Christmas is really about but it is so fun to watch the boys get overly excited about all this new stuff. We keep reminding them of Jesus's birth. We pointed out the similarities of Santa and Jesus before opening gifts. We sang happy birthday to Jesus on Christmas day. We really tried to make sure that they knew the real reason for all of this activity. I used to worry that we didn't do enough to make them understand. It feels so good not to worry so much. It feels so good to just enjoy life more.
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