Christmas 2014

ahhh, Christmas...my favorite time of the whole year and the time that flies by like nothing else.  We had a wonderful Christmas this year....I have to say, it might have been one of my favorites with the boys so far because I feel like it's the first year that both of them really got it.  I mean, Jake caught on years ago, but Liam was still a little confused by the whole thing last year...this year?  That kid was a pro!  He was so excited the entire month of December, so Christmas morning with both of them was a blast!! 

As always, I was the biggest child and was awake about 15 minutes before either kid woke up.  Liam woke up shortly before 6 (which is kind of sleeping in for him) and Jake was up right after. 

 Once I made my way down the stairs and got my coffee (of course) and the camera in place, we unleashed the beasts. 

SANTA CAME!!!

 I don't think I mentioned it on here, but Santa spent an excessive amount of time early in December trying to track down some Paw Patrol items.  Liam is obsessed with Paw Patrol right now, and you may remember from an earlier post that Liam had 3 things on his list this year: Paw Patrol toys, something steelers, and a little sister he could name Elsa.  Well, I really needed to deliver on items 1 & 2 because #3 was not happening!! 

Who knew little dog figures would prove to be so hard to find?  I had half of my family and some friends searching for me...thankfully, my mom was able to snag some and my MIL found the other one I needed.  PHEW.  It was the first year that I've really been that parent, scrambling to find the hot toy!  But....it was all worth it in the end, because look at this reaction....priceless.

Santa also brought a game table for the boys...it has football, air hockey, basketball, ping pong and archery...it's been a hit!

They both got a lot of great gifts...thank you so much to everyone for your generosity!!

Just when you thought Christmas sweaters couldn't get any uglier, these two took it to a new level with a gift from my mom and dad:

And Gracie got a new (not so ugly) Christmas sweater:

Somewhere in the middle of the present opening extravaganza, a slight Christmas crisis took place.  It's no secret that I hate cooking....but I like to think I've mastered the art of cooking a turkey.  I mean, it's a turkey....right? 

I decided to put the bird in the pan face down for the first hour, to try and make it juicier (it really does work, just for reference!) so after the hour, the timer is beeping, but there are also a bunch of people talking, music playing, and toys making noise....so I'm sitting there asking what the beeping is.  Someone points out that it's my timer, so I run into the kitchen and turn off the timer.  Or, at least I think that's all I turn off.  I flip the bird, stuff him back in, reset the timer and walk away.

Fast forward to an hour later, I open the oven to do some basting.  hmm....nothing to baste, oh well...shut the oven door.  Fast forward to an HOUR after that (so 2 hours total) and my mom goes to check on him and notices that the oven isn't hot.  Say what??  After a few minutes of confusion, we piece together that I must have turned off both the timer AND the oven when I went to flip him over.  Ooops.  So, um, yeah...the turkey was now 2 hours behind on cooking.  I didn't want to crank up the heat for fear of this happening:

Fortunately, no one seemed to be too angry (at least not that they shared verbally, aside from the mandatory teasing about it the rest of the night)....thank goodness for appetizers!!

Having to wait for dinner gave the boys a chance to force everyone to play with their new toys:

And it gave us time to take some goofy selfies:

Then, it was finally time to EAT!

The food was delicious, even though it was 2 hours later than promised :)  And more importantly, we had so many of our family there with us to celebrate (although we really missed Amy and Ben!!)  After Liam said the blessing before we ate, I almost teared up looking around the table and seeing everyone together.  I feel very lucky that both sides of our family are there to join us on Christmas Day.

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, too!!