Christmas

so i think my new favorite thing about Christmas is having it on Sunday :) can we do that more often please?
Afton is far and away the most excited about Christmas this year for our family, and was up correspondingly early, so she's the only one i got a picture of eating breakfast (then we were in a hurry to open as much as possible of the stockings and get off to 8.30am church)



she could be in a commercial here, huh?!

naturally i got practically no pictures of the stockings and the cute little things they were able to open before church... i took a lot, but apparently i was too excited to focus on things that might blog-worthy... after church, we rushed home to talk to auntie emalie (on a mission in florida), and it turns out she ended up rescheduling anyways, so we ended up talking to her about an hour and a half later than we thought we had to rush to do... which was fine for the grown-ups, but mom made the kids wait even longer to get to the good stuff! we finished opening stockings while brunch was in the oven, then we ate some yummy breakfast casserole and coffee cake (cake for breakfast! this really is a holiday!) and then talked to emalie for real before finally getting to the presents!
though now that i think about it, i did let the girls each 'open' one present (that we didn't wrap) before brunch, they each got a sleeping bag, which they were very excited about, now we're all ready to go camping again! here are some random pictures i did take of Christmas gifts/children:


rayna's new teddy bear, that matches her bear hat

malachi got LOTS of new trucks and cars, which he loves! he really wasn't interested in that other red present at all (it was a new tool set, he likes it fine too, but not as much as those tractors!)



the kids each got a ring-pop in their stockings that they could eat while we were walking home form church... they were happy to pose for pictures with them, but they weren't interested in looking at me too much :)



afton posing with her dress--i still love these dresses!
here's hoping they fit for a LONG time!



the girls got daddy a hammock for Christmas, the even wrapped it for him, and may have helped unwrap it too ;)

and finally, here was grandma's tree... maybe i should have put that one first ;)