Christmas...in March!

So here's the very edited version of Christmas. Hey, I'm only a few months behind. What's the big deal? At least I'm finally doing it, right?!

Brent and I decided that for Christmas this year, we wanted to give the kids something besides toys. We knew they'd get toys from Santa and others, so we decided to do passes to a theme park. The hope was that we'd give them memories, not more junk for me to clean up. (It now appears that the memories they have is of me saying, "Ewww! Don't lay down on the floor here!" or "No, we're not buying that" as we pass EVERY single stand in Knott's Berry Farm. But the intentions were good...)

I could do Disneyland every year, but we decided to try something new this time. The kids are getting older, so we thought it might be fun to try a theme park with more rollercoasters. Also, Knott's has a waterpark that we can enjoy all summer long, which is really appealing since we STILL don't have air conditioning in our house. So, the Saturday before Christmas, we headed over to Knott's to get our passes. Here are some pics from that day.



This is Sarah right after her first rollercoaster ride. The picture does not do justice to the fear and terror she described! With her crazy personality, I thought she'd LOVE rollercoasters, but apparently she did not inherite my love of rollercoasters.



We all took a ride on the stagecoach. What did the kids find interesting? That horses poop while they walk. I'm so proud...



Sarah liked this ride a lot more than the rollercoaster.



You notice Brent and I are hardly in the pictures with the kids? There's a reason for that...


For Christmas Eve, we had our friends, the Zollingers over for dinner and then a short, barely spiritual puppet show of the nativity. Hey, you got to work with the audience you've got. Then it was time for the traditional opening of new Christmas pajamas and TRYING to get the kids to bed.



Sarah and Allison were REALLY excited about their super silky kitty cat pajamas. I have to say I couldn't have picked out pj's that would have been more perfect for their crazy fetishes (Sarah's thumbsucking and Allison's obsession with cats.)



Tears already! Isn't that about right? They haven't even SEEN their presents yet! Things got better once Allison saw what Santa brought...



Yeah, a pretend cat. Just what we need to curb this crazy behavior.

Nate was excited about his new bike. He's at the age when he can't just have a bike, it has to be the 'right' bike. But he was very grateful and loves riding it to school, so it was money well spent.



This is the best picture I have of the bike. (hey, we have a small living room and it was hard to get a good shot.) I'll post more pictures later.



Later that morning, the kids gathered around Sarah's new Nintendo DS to watch her play Mario Kart. Another big hit for Santa Claus!

While we had a great, relaxing day, it was sad to not spend the holidays with family. So I spent the 26th packing things up and we drove up to Utah on the 27th to spend a few days with the Livingstone family. (Yes, I spent my birthday locked in the car for 12 hours with my 3 kids & dog. What better way to celebrate?!) Details in the next post, hopefully coming soon...