Christmas at our house

We had a great Christmas this year. It was the first one in a while that we didn't visit anyone or have any visitors here. But it was nice to be able to do our own thing, on our own schedule. Kiersten set the table nicely, and Ben cooked a delicious pork loin. Kara had bought a game hen, since she didn't want pork, but we didn't get it in the oven early enough, so she didn't end up getting to eat it for Christmas Eve. 

We all got to open new pajamas for Christmas. Mine came with some shorts to wear in warm weather, and I put those on over the pants. The girls found that hilarious. They all got new robes, and really liked them. 

Modeling their new jammies. 

After we watched Muppets Christmas Carol, they put out some cookies and milk for santa.

They forgot to put out the reindeer food that they got from the babysitters at the gym. But luckily, Santa must have found it in the pantry. When we woke up in the morning, the packages were empty, and there were still a few oats on the front porch. 

We drove down to Santa's Magical kingdom at Jellystone park to see the lights. There are lots of silly things there. Kiersten fell asleep again this year on the drive out there. Luckily, she woke up in time to see the lights. Last year she slept through the entire thing. 

Santa brought Evie the Doc Mcstuffins check up center she has wanted. She also got a singing  Doc doll, and a mini checkup center for the doll. She was so excited when she saw it. The older girls were also quite distracted by it before they even noticed their own gifts. 

Kara got an easy bake oven. She is pretty excited to have it. She's already planning to use any birthday money she gets to buy more mixes for it. So we'll see if she gets any money or not, hehe. She especially wants the cheese pizza mix.

Kiersten got a 3DS XL. It is pretty cool. It came with a zelda game, which Ben talked her into giving to him, and he took back the Zelda game Santa brought him, so she could get a game she likes better. I guess Santa had already gotten the game for Ben before he realized that it would come with Kiersten's system for free. 

The stockings were particularly stuffed this year! I was pretty surprised to find a new waterproof camera in mine! I actually got all teared up, because I was not expecting to get one, and didn't feel that I deserved another one, after so carelessly losing mine at sea... but Santa must really love me!

Evie was the first to wake up. She was okay laying with us and watching cartoons, for about an hour, but then, got impatient, so we let her wake her sisters. 

They didn't mind being woken up, and were eager to get downstairs. 

Kiersten got a movie, some DS games, and card games in her stocking. When I went to bag up the girls' candy for them, all she had left was a few M&Ms. Guess I should have known to get to it sooner!

Kara had a Wii game, a movie, and some card games in her stocking. But she was most excited about a set of brushes, elastics, and a compact mirror. She also had some lip gloss and perfume. She went on and on about how she got "teenager" stuff from Santa. She also told me several times that she's going to keep it all in her pink makeup bag. 

While Ben and I made breakfast, she baked her first batch of cookies. 

When they were done, she took them around for everyone to try. 

She got her favorite book series from Aunt Katie. She was so excited. Her teacher wont let her check these out from the library anymore, because they are not challenging enough. But it's always good to have some enjoyable easy reading too. It's been hard to get her to do anything the last few days, because she keeps disappearing to read them. 

Sweet Kiersten loved everything she got. It's fun to see how truly excited she gets about everything. I don't think you could give her a present she wouldn't love. 

Ben finally got his coveted Chiefs clock. It's already been hung downstairs, and unfortunately has a very loud ticking. But he's so happy with it, I guess we can get used to the tick tick tocking. 

Of course Evie loved every gift as well! She has had so much fun playing with all of her new toys. 

Our big gift to Evie was a Disney Klip Klop castle. She has been wanting this for several weeks. She was more than willing to send other toys out of her room to make space for this. We gave all of her baby toys to goodwill. We probably got rid of 3 times more toys than they got, but it's nice to get rid of things they aren't playing with. 

Our gift for Kiersten was a fur real cat named Daisy. She changed it's name to Cutie Pie because she doesn't want 2 cats named Daisy. This is pretty much her new prized posession. 

We got Kara a karaoke machine. So far we have been using it with her Disney CD's, which has been fun, but they don't have the words on the screen. She used her Christmas money from Papa to order a karaoke CD 3 pack, that should be here next week. She is very anxious for it to get here, and wants to have some friends over to try it out. 

Evie's haul! She pretty much got all toys. Last night when I put her to bed, she insisted on cleaning up all of her toys first, because she doesn't want anything to get lost or broken. So that was a nice development! (Especially since I spent hours cleaning out their rooms and going through everything to make space for their new things)

Kiersten baby got lots of games, puzzles, books, and movies. I had a great time playing all of her new games with her. She also wanted me to play all of Kara and Evie's new games with her too. 

Kara got a lot of big stuff as well. Luckily she has a big room and closet to keep it all. She was so happy to get the game battleship, and told us how she plays it at school all the time. But when I sat down to play with her, it became clear that she didn't really know how to play correctly. 

I made Kara's hen for her on Christmas night. The rest of us had left overs. She was so excited for it, and did not want me to cut the meat off the bone. I should have done it anyway, as she later was coughing up a small bone.. And she ate about 20-30% of the meat before declaring she was finished with it. -Sidenote- look how well her hair is growing out. When she cut it, I didn't think it'd be looking halfway decent by Christmas. I guess I've learned my lesson that these things are not such a big deal. She did ask this morning if she can have scissors in her desk again, but Ben and I both said no.

It was such a nice, easy going day. Though we are all trying to fight off colds, I think everyone enjoyed their Christmas day.