Christmas 2014

What a beautiful day to celebrate Christmas!  The sun was out and the temps were in the mid 40's so it was a perfect day!

After breakfast with the Savages, the Keppys' arrived with 2 pans of homemade cinnamon rolls - yum yum!!!  The first pan was DELICIOUS!!!  After stuffing ourselves with rolls, we all walked up to the property so everyone could see the new house - they were all amazed at how much had gotten done!

Late morning Jaime and Kylan arrived and mid-afternoon Brad and Rayna arrived (Rayna had volleyball practice).  Now that the whole gang was here, it was time to start the festivities!!

I had decided we were going to let the kids open some of their presents in the afternoon so they could actually "play" with their items so the opening began!!

 The kids were all dressed in their cute pj's - a holiday tradition!!

 Parker was the MOST FUN to watch as he opened his gifts - he's 3 1/2 and was so excited to open each one - he was THRILLED with whatever he got!!  Here he had just opened a transformer!

 Kenzie and Aleah were happy with their "Frozen" dolls and played with them all afternoon!

 After the kids had opened a couple of gifts, they all went to play and the gals had their stocking exchange!

 When Rayna arrived, she had some catching up to do!!

 Each year I do either a book of pictures or a poster for each grand child - this year Aleah and Kenzie got books of their "Excellent Adventures" at Nana and Papa's last summer and the other 4 got posters.

 I gave the boys state quarter books to fill with a note that said they had access to our large, large money jar - so I set them up in Glenn's office to start sorting - Jaime decided she just had to help them and they were done in a little over an hour!!  Believe it or not, they both found every state except Kylan needed one more New Jersey quarter!!!  WOW !!!

Dinner was Italian this year - I had made manicotti and stuffed shells earlier in the week and froze it so with those and some garlic bread and Caesar salad, we had a fantastic meal!!

Then it was back for the rest of the presents!!

It was a great evening enjoying each other's company while opening presents - a little loud at times (did I say a LITTLE - I meant a LOT LOUD) !!  We all enjoyed jello cake later on and after putting the kids to bed, we weren't far behind!!  5 of the grand kids slept up in the loft with us - it was wall to wall kids which makes it a little tough getting up in the middle of the night to head to the bathroom!!

A couple of kids talked in their sleep but otherwise they did great - I can't say I got a lot of sleep that night (especially since Rayna's IPhone alarm went off at 5:00 am and I was the only one that woke up to try and find it to shut it off!!!) but I was fine and knew I could catch up on sleep the next night!!

When I got up around 3:00 to use the bathroom, I peeked outside and it was a winter wonderland!!  I knew it would be beautiful in the morning.........................