Christmas

Well, as promised, I am finally getting around to all my catching up on my blogging. We took a lot of pictures this Christmas, so here goes! As usual, we had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas was especially fun this year with our little boy. He was totally into it this year! On Christmas Eve, we went to Daniel's parents to visit them since we weren't going to see them that night. They gave us our Christmas pajamas that Lani makes every year. Everyone in the family gets matching pajamas, even Makee! Then we met up with my family at Little America. My family goes with my grandma, and my Uncle Mark and Aunt Sue and my two cousins Aaron and Cassi. We have gone to Little America every year on Christmas Eve for my whole life. I love going there. I get the turkey dinner every year. After we get all the presents hauled to my grandma's fill her living room with them, we bust open all the snacks and eat and hang out all night. I think that's my favorite part about Christmas Eve. We always stay up late eating and laughing around the kitchen table. It's so fun. Before we go to bed, Gran gives us our Christmas eve pajamas. Dan keeps telling Gran, "Gran, I'm gonna be thirty next year. You don't have to keep getting me pajamas." But she still does! Every year she says, "This is the last year." After the kids go to bed, Santa comes. I remember when my Grandpa was alive he used to say he was going to sit outside with a BB gun and shoot Santa. It used to stress me and Whitney out so much! He loved to tease us. I also have so many memories of sleeping on my Grandma's sofa sleeper with Whit. I could never sleep for two reasons...1) I was way too excited. 2) Whit kicks a lot in her sleep. For my entire life, we have slept at my Grandma's house on Christmas Eve. This was our last year sleeping at my Grandma's house. Daniel has been so good to sleep at Grandma's for the last few years, but he is ready to start our own traditions at home, which I think will be great. It's kind of bitter sweet because sleeping at my Grandma's is all I've ever known. But I'm excited to do our own thing too. I have so many wonderful memories of childhood Christmas traditions. I really cherished our Christmas Eve this year because I know next year will be different. We won't be at Grandma's next year. Fatty will be on his mission. So we will have a lot of changes. I'm really going to miss not being with everyone, but I have great memories I will never forget.
Anyway, Christmas morning, Makee woke up at 4:30 and never went back to bed. We stayed in the bedroom playing with him until everyone got up at 6:00 to see what Santa brought. Daniel was ready to take him out at 4:30 to see what Santa brought his little boy, but I made him wait! So at 6:00, the kids lined up as usual, youngest to oldest on the stairs. So Mak was first. He got a wagon! He loved it. We've been pulling him around in our living room and kitchen, and he just beams. I can't wait until the weather is nicer so I can take him out in it. He was also very excited about Isabelle's pink recliner chair. They always want what the other one has! But it was really fun this year. Don't worry--he like all his other stuff too. And everyone spoiled him. Makee got into opening his presents, and he was excited about his toys. Christmas is so much more fun with a little boy! We had a great Christmas morning. We got so much fun stuff including clothes, Wii stuff, a digital photo frame, and much more. Christmas morning was so crazy, but so fun.
The best gift I recieved was my marble board Daniel made me to play this game we love to play. He put a lot of love into it, quite literally including blood, sweat, and tears. He was over at his grandpa's shop working on my board one night and he cut two of his fingers in a biscuit cutter. I was at young women's, and Doug and Lani had Makee across the street at their house. Daniel walked across the street to his parent's house, cleaned up his cut, and much to his mother's dismay, went back over to the shop to make his last cuts. After that, Lani insisted that he go to the Instacare to have the cuts looked at. Lani and Makee went with him, and I met them over as soon as I heard. But they said the cuts were too deep to do anything. So they sent him to the emergency room. Lani went with him, and I took Makee home to go to bed. Five stitches later, he was okay! After all the drama, I've been dying to see what he made me for Christmas. Boy, do I love my hubby. And I'm so glad he's okay. I love my board, and we will spend years enjoying it with our family! We already play it all the time with the two of us.
After we had Christmas breakfast, we headed to Daniel's parents. There, in our Christmas jammies, we had cinnamon rolls and football rolls--an Anderson family favorite. Then we headed downstairs for another slew of Christmas chaos. All three of the little boys got Big Wheels! Makee loves his. He's a little small for it, but he loves to sit and scoot himself around. Makee got more toys than he knew what to do with, and so did we! It was fun having the whole family together just hanging out all morning. Every year the boys get some cheesy homemade Christmas gift made with pom-poms. The last couple years, Daniel has gotten Christmas sweaters, which he loves wearing on Christmas Eve and to Christmas parties. This year all the boys, including the little boys (even Baby Drake!) got reindeer beanies made out of gloves and pom-poms. They were hilarious! They all looked so cute in their hats. What fun.
Later on, we headed to my Grandma's for a delicious Christmas lunch, and just enough time for Makee to have a nap and us to play some games. We tried out my marble game for the first time ever, and it was great. Sorry about the bloody picture of the finger in one of the collages. I wanted to document how much my husband must love me because he sure goes through a lot for me! And don't worry, after lunch, the day still wasn't through. We then went back to Daniel's parents' house to have a big dinner with his grandma and all his extended family. I know people must be thinking...how do they eat that much? Well, I don't know, but we do it happily! Then we went to Daniel's grandma's to open presents, which again resulted in Makee getting more fun stuff. Finally to end the night, we went to my Aunt JoAnn's house to celebrate Christmas. It was fun to be together, open presents, and eat our traditional Christmas cake. Christmas night it was a blizzard outside! So we had to leave JoAnn's kind of early to make sure we made it home safely. But we had a great day. I love Christmas, and I love all of our family traditions. All the running around makes for a crazy day, and some things might have to change, especially when we have more kids, but I do love all the time we spend with our whole families. So a very late very Merry Christmas!