This Christmas, Heel the Love!

And I thought 5:45am was early? Ha! Boy was I wrong! I WISH the kids would have slept til 5:45 this morning!

I got home from the Candlelight Service at church around 12:20am and Santa had already made it to our house!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, and it's quite evident, by the bulging, that St. Nicholas was there!

It looks like Gage and Emma were pretty good this year.................or at least Santa wasn't watching when they weren't.

After I got to bed, after church, I tossed and turned for quite a little while. I had some restless leg stuff going on and it was keeping me from falling asleep. I don't know what time I finally dozed off, but at 2:45 am we were startled awake by Gage AND Emma. They said Santa had been here and they were ready to open presents. Emma had her stocking in hand and when I realized what time it was, I told them that we HAD to get more sleep. I told Gage that I was aware that we said we would get up when they did so they wouldn't have to wait around to open presents, but I didn't mean at 2:45!!!!! I pulled Emma into bed next to me, Christmas stocking and all, and Gage crawled in next to Scott. We were certainly packed in the bed like sardines. It kind of reminded me of when I was a kid on Christmas Eve when all 5 of us kids would be packed in the bed just waiting for morning to come and open presents! I could not fall asleep, and I was having a hard time with my darned leg being so restless and it was hard to move around. I think I had just fallen back to sleep when Emma yells out, "It's time to get up and open presents now!" I looked at the clock and it was 3:45am! UGH! Our alarm clock projects the time onto the ceiling and I asked Emma if she could see those numbers on the ceiling. When she said "Yes", I told her that when the numbers read "five zero zero" we could get up. She fell back to sleep fairly quickly, but I was having a hard time. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer so I told Emma I would go lay with her in her bed, intending to lay there for a few seconds, then go back to my own bed. When we got down the stairs, Gage scared me nearly half to death when he jumped up off the couch with the mantel clock in his hands and said, "I'm watching for the clock to turn to 5 o'clock Mom!" OMG! I thought he was in our bed that whole time! If I had known he wasn't even there, I would have shoved Scott over to the edge of his side of the bed so I could have had some room to kick my restless leg around! Gage went back to bed, and I fell asleep in bed with Emma. When I woke up and went to my own bed, I think it was actually around 7am!! I was surprised that they had fallen back to sleep and stayed that way! It wasn't long and they were back upstairs, so we got up with them to go downstairs to rip open presents!

They couldn't wait to tear into the presents!

Emma got a new set of "girl legos" that she immediately had to open up and start building houses with.

Gage was thrilled to death with his new Clone Wars Wii game, and he even got some light sabre attachments for the Wii remote!

After Gage was done playing, he said his arm was killing him! I believe he got quite a workout! LOL!

The kids were so excited to see that Santa left each of us a ticket to go to the movie, Marley & Me! (We didn't realize the theater wasn't open yesterday, so I made up some tickets on the computer that looked pretty darned good!) They were very proud of the tickets and handed them to the lady in the booth, attempting to get in "free". I was trying to get her attention so I could motion to her that the tickets weren't real, but she never looked up. Finally, I just said, "Santa brought those movie tickets!" When she said, "That will be $25." Gage wanted to know if his ticket was free. I assured him that his ticket was valid. :-)

I couldn't resist taking the kids' picture next to this big fat-head-like picture of Marley. I wish I could have that thing when they are done with it. It is just so darned cute!

The kids had their own little combo boxes and were thrilled to death to be at the movies on Christmas Day!

Emma had to bring her new Webkinz Sea Otter, "Popcorn". She named it that because Santa had put it in a plastic popcorn container with the Marley movie ticket.

Everyone was all smiles.................well, until later in the movie, that is. I forgot my darned box of Kleenex. I was planning on taking one, as I knew I would need it after the time we had when we were reading the book. I had such a hard time getting through the book, I knew the movie was going to be bad. I have never been to a movie before when the whole theater was sniffling and crying. It took everything I had not to break out into sobs. It was a really good movie, however. I even heard Scott sniffling. It was just so very much like Branta, towards the end of her life.

After we got home Emma was dying to make something in her "Bake Over".

She said it was "scrumptious!"

After supper this evening, we sat down to play the Wii Rockband game. We had played it earlier, but not all at the same time with each of the instruments and microphone.

Scott jamming away to "Wanted, Dead or Alive", by Bon Jovi I believe. It is so much fun!

Emma was manning the camera and taking pictures of our "drummer".

I always wanted to play the guitar!

Don't quit your day job Scott!

Gage finally took over the microphone and was doing a pretty good job. Here's a little glimpse of us playing together.

Of course I procrastinated all day long and started packing tonight at 9pm for our trip to Iowa tomorrow morning. Scott has a Biolife appointment at 5:30, so I suppose we'll be able to get on the road by 7am. I hope I have everything! I suppose I should quit blogging and get to bed where I can lay awake thinking about the things I still need to pack!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

(In case you're wondering Mom and Dad, the Rockband is packed and in the car, along with our Wii remotes! :-)) See ya tomorrow night! (If the weather isn't looking good, we'll call you to let you know what our plans are.)