Four Christmas-es

This Christmas sure was a busy one & boy was it a fun one too! The preparation for Christmas was tons of fun this year because Bradyn finally started to understand the concept of Santa coming to town and that he brings presents to good boys and girls. Bradyn found the courage to sit on Santa's lap this year and had a conversation with him telling him politely complete with please and thank you that he wanted James (Thomas's train friend), dishes, and puzzles. We continued the family tradition of Happy the Elf (Elf on a Shelf). Happy visited us everyday between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve flying away each night and finding a new hiding spot each morning. Bradyn absolutely had a blast and cracked up at each new place he landed! We also enjoyed the Festival of lights in Peoria twice this year. Bradyn had such a fun time the first time we went that we went ahead and went back for round two. He also went to see Santa for the second time there. He again had an entire conversation with him, reinforcing his desire for James, dishes, and puzzles. He stayed pretty consistent with what he wanted which made it easy for "Santa" to know just want to get him. Bradyn really enjoyed decorating the tree & got super excited about his long lost Wizard of Oz ornament that he hadn't seen since last year. He loved making Christmas cookies with mommy & daddy and leaving them out for Santa on Christmas eve.
After all the preparation, it was finally time for our Four Christmases. First stop: Grandma Netter's house. Last year we started a family tradition of a "gag gift" which is a silly Elf Hat & whoever opens it (first of course) has to be the elf who passes out all the presents... Well my brother passed it on to my mom, so mom was the elf with the help of Bradyn & Kyleah. The highlight of Christmas this year was watching the kids thoroughly enjoy themselves opening presents in a hurry to see what's inside. Another highlight at mom's was to see her surprise when she opened the gift of a picture of all 6 of us that we had taken without her knowing. She LOVED it...and cried. :) Happy tears of course. She also loved our gift to her of a weekend in St. Louis for the MVC basketball tournament. We had such a fun time down there this past year so we decided we might just need to make it an annual trip.

Next stop: Grandma Blaum's & Dad's.. we visited at Grandma's house for a bit and ate dinner with the whole family, then while some people went over to the church to sing Christmas carols, we headed down to Dad's to exchange gifts with him. We were so thankful that he was feeling great and up for all of the Christmas festivities since it was only a couple weeks after having open heart surgery.

Yep.. he seems to be JUST fine... LOL (Dad, I promised to not post this to directly to Facebook, but had to let everyone know you were ok somehow. ) HEHEHEHE

Again, the most enjoyable part of it all was watching the kids have fun. This time Bradyn & Kyleah put on a wrapping paper wrestling match. They wiggled around in the wrapping paper covering each other with it. It was hilarious to watch. We had to keep reminding Bradyn that he's bigger than Kyleah and needed to be gentle, but all in all it appeared they were having a fun time with each other. Again another highlight was the picture of all 6 of us for dad as well. He also appeared to LOVE it!

Next stop: Home! Christmas morning was great this year. Bradyn woke up about 8 and came into our room and said, "did Santa come?" So we went downstairs to see.. I think he was expecting Santa to actually be sitting on the couch because he peeked around the corner and said, "Nope, he didn't."

I said, are you sure? Are the cookies gone? He peeked in the cup and there was only a dribble of milk left and only a couple bites of cookie left, but still wasn't convinced that Santa came.. again, because he didn't see him. I told him to look at all the presents, and that Santa left them and ate most of the cookie and drank the milk and that he had FOR SURE been here. LOL From there he was ready to open the presents. He couldn't wait to see what was inside. His favorite saying for the week was, "Which one can I open next?" He got lot of great stuff, and sure enough he must have been a good boy because he got James, and dishes, and puzzles!! He also got a great train table too.

This year I also started a new tradition for Bradyn... I carried it over to my family, it's something my mom did for me and my brother. It all started with a Santa Piggy Bank and each year when we pulled out the Christmas decorations, we put a penny dated that year in it. My Santa bank now has 30 pennies in it!!! I double checked the dates, and sure enough, one for each Christmas I have celebrated. Bradyn had such a fun time dumping the pennies out and putting them back into my bank over and over again that I decided to check to see if I could find another Santa bank for him. When in doubt.. check Ebay!! :) Found it! Now Bradyn's Santa bank has 3 pennies in it. Shake Shake Shake.

Last stop: Wisconsin. This year we decided instead of exchanging $50 gift cards with Chad's brothers and not having a clue what to get his parents, we would go on a weekend getaway to Blue Harbor Resort in Wisconsin. We all shared a presidential suite overlooking Lake Michigan. It was a snowy Lake Michigan, but still beautiful. We had a blast playing games, watching the 4 babies play together, and splashing around at the indoor waterpark that was in the resort.

We did an small exchange with the kids, so it would still feel like Christmas, but for the most part this Christmas it was just about spending time together and having fun as a family. It was a wonderful time and I can honestly say, I forgot how much fun waterslides were!! WHOOHOOO!