December 25, 2019-Merry Christmas!

(click here for today's pictures)

• Wow! What a busy day this was. I am sure that most Christmases are busy, but this one was pretty perfect. (Though my favorite Christmas to date has been the one that begin the ice storm where we were iced in one room for the next few days.)
• Robby and I woke up around 7 to turn on lights and brush our teeth. Soon it was 7:20, and we headed up to get the kids. We told them don't plan on stirring until then, but it sounded like cattle were above my head running from one side of the house to the other. They were so excited. Graham is probably the most excited about Christmas morning.
• We took our obligatory stair picture and then let everyone loose. They quickly found their spots. The stockings this year were pretty epic. I will say that our stockings are on the small side-very small. Now, they are very vintage so there is no changing them. 
• I guess that "Santa" (notice the quotation marks-every time that Keaton says the word 'santa', she uses air quotation marks) shopped all year on the stockings. Stockings are my favorite, and I think that the kids enjoyed them too. Not only were the stockings full, but "Santa" had to use a box beside each stocking to hold the overflow.
• Let's review a few of what everyone received. Everyone gets one present from us, one from Santa and one from the sibling that drew their name. Some of these "one" gifts have a few parts to them. Also, Keaton, Campbell and Graham all bought everyone gifts as well. So here we go:
• Reagan-soccer goal, duffel bag and money, and an oversized sweatshirt and cookie dough.
• Anderson-droid building experience, Lego set, 2 Brickheadz and popcorn.
• Graham-NBA experience, duffel bag and sweatshirt, basketball hoop and Funko pop.
• Campbell-Pulaski Tech Cooking School Camp, 3 games, and a make up bag and ipad cover.
• Keaton-Build a Bear experience and househoes, crocs and slime, and a game and makeup brushes.
• Whitman-a broom (he asked for it), a bean bag chair, and a cardboard house, water bottle and plastic cups to stack.
• Robby-a game, electric knife, scratch off tickets and that was it-I think I need to do better next Christmas for him.
• Tara-tennis shoes, cooking pans, Nertz card game and some cash. 
• We unwrapped and unwrapped. It was quite fun watching the kids open their goodies. I do think that everyone was super pleased with what all they received. At least I do hope so. I had cleaned up the living room just as Nonna, Pops, Jason, Grannymom and Grandpa begin arriving.
• Robby had made monkey bread and sausage biscuits for everyone to enjoy. We also had raspberries along with some caramel machiatto for Reagan. Everyone enjoyed showing off their presents to all of the grands. Plus they all had one more present for the grandmas which they loved giving.
• We had about an hour of downtime before heading to Dana's house for our Christmas lunch. Robby laid down on the couch, and Whitman sat in my lap. He played on his ipad while I leaned on him and took a brief nap.
• Then we loaded up for Dana's. The kids took some of their games and enjoyed playin them with their cousins. We all enjoyed Dana's chili which was delicious even though the weather is not cold at all. 
• The kids could have stayed and played for the rest of the afternoon. However, we headed on to our house. The first thing that we did was put together Reagan's soccer goal. She was pretty happy about it and even spent some time shooting some goals. 
• All of the kids hung out outside and even found some neighbors to play with. Anderson ran with Robby to throw away a few things while Reagan and I moved a car which ended with us driving around the block a few times. When I say "us" driving-I really mean her. She did really, really good.
• Robby then started to work cleaning out his shed. Some squirrels have made their home in the shed. I tried to help him, but it was hard since I had my hood on (didn't want one of those landing on my head) and since I was not going to step foot in that shed at all (again I didn't want one of those landing on my head). All I could think about was the song about the squirrel going berserk. Yep, I may not sleep tonight.
• He worked on that for a very long time. I did help cautiously some but ended up inside straightening. The kids played some games tonight until we were hungry enough to make some Bagel Bites.
• The Wilsons called so we took our supper over there. We ate some of their food and they ate some of ours. As we were eating, Whitman crawled into my lap and was soon sound asleep. He had a super tiring Christmas I guess. Robby moved him to a bed, and he slept until 11 when we headed home.
• We all played some games-everyone had lots of fun, and it was a super perfect end to our Christmas day.