A Very Merry Christmas! 2012

Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, I made homemade sugar cut-out cookies for the first time ever. Dawson helped me use the cookie cutters to make Christmas shaped cookies while Ashlynn was napping. He thought it was tons of fun. I think Ashlynn would have enjoyed it, too, so I'm going to have to make some again soon when she can help me. After they were finished baking I made the icing that we were going to use to decorate them. It snowed like crazy yesterday and we were supposed to go over to my mom's for dinner. The roads were terrible on my way home from work that afternoon so I told my mom we might not make it. Dave was working and I really didn't want to take the kids out in that mess. I decided at the last minute that I really didn't want to miss Christmas Eve dinner with the family so I got the kids bundled up and we headed out. Even though it was still lightly snowing the roads were a lot better than they had been earlier that day. We had a yummy dinner and had fun hanging out with the family. When we got home it was time to decorate cookies for Santa! Ashlynn decorated two of them with a lot of help from me, of course. She was more interested in eating everything. :P

Dawson had a BLAST decorating the cookies, he did almost all of them by himself. In fact, I left him alone to decorate for a few minutes so I could give Ashlynn a quick bath and get her into bed. It was already way past her bedtime and she was definitely showing it.

After Dawson finished decorating the cookies I let him give Christopher hugs and hang out with him for a couple of minutes (because he was supposed to go back to the North Pole) while I cleaned everything up.

Then we set out the cookies for Santa...

After that I gave Daws a quick bath and got him ready for bed and we read Twas the Night Before Christmas! I really wish Ashlynn would have been awake to read it with us but she was SO ready for bed! After Dawson was all tucked in he kept getting out of bed telling me that he was going to miss Christopher and he didn't want him to leave. He said he was going to stay awake all night so Christopher couldn't leave (Christopher only moves/leaves when we're asleep). I felt bad that he was getting so upset so I told him I would write Santa a letter and ask him if Christopher could stay for one more night. Dawson liked that idea!

After Dave got home we got all the presents and everything set up.

I totally forgot to take a picture of the stockings, I took this one on Christmas morning after Dave had already given Dawson his stocking. Dawson's looked pretty much the same except it had an Angry Birds plush sticking out of it.

Ashlynn wasn't interested in opening presents, she just wanted to play with the ones that were open. She wanted me to do all the work. Dawson LOVED opening presents!

The present that the kids were most excited about were their ride-on cars!! We were happy to have a white Christmas but bummed at the same time because we weren't able to take the kids outside to drive them. Ashlynn's is small enough that she was able to drive it up and down the hallway (which is what she did the entire time we were home today) but Dawson's is ginormous so he couldn't drive his much.

We really don't have a lot of room in the apartment for the cars but we got a REALLY good deal on Dawson's and know that we'll be getting into a house in a few months. We know that the kids are really going to enjoy them this summer!!

This is a crappy picture that I took with my phone (right before Dawson almost ran me over!) but I think it's too cute that they can ride together! We're going to have so much fun with his truck and her car!

We spent a couple of hours at home playing with the kids' new toys and then we headed over to my dad and Carrie's around 11 to open more presents and have lunch. It was fun hanging out with everyone for a couple of hours. After that we headed over my grandma Snow's to spend time with her for a little bit. She had a lot of food there so we snacked a little bit more and just enjoyed our family's company. My grandma Pennington was there, too, which was a nice surprise! After that we headed over to my mom's to open more presents and just hang out with everyone. We snacked a bit more and celebrated Bronson's birthday (I can't believe my baby brother is 17 now!!!). We didn't get home until after 7! It was a fun family filled day! I can't believe how spoiled the kids got! When we got home I tried to gather their loot for a pic. This may take awhile to type all of this out... *lol* And I'm sure there are probably a couple of things missing.

Here's Ashlynn's stuff...

She got a Little People princess castle, a table and chairs set, a Merida doll (her fav, along with her ride-on car), books, coloring books, a few princess dolls, Prince Eric doll, a Cinderella blanket, bubble bath, Monsters Inc on bluray, a huge princess art kit, princess stickers for the wall in her room, a bag with her name on it that Becca made, socks, robe, some pjs, a jacket, and tons of clothes. Oh, and not pictured are some princess dress up shoes (3 pairs) and a crown. She hasn't put Merida down all day, it's so cute!!!

And here is Dawson's stuff...

 He got a Cars blanket, Cars stickers for the wall in his room, all four Ninja Turtle action figures, a wooden train set, a huge Cars art kit, a remote control truck, Angry Bird and pig plush, Rudolph slippers, books, coloring books, Innotab 2, Cars game for the Innotab, Cars on bluray (the DVD that we have skips a little and it's his favorite movie), Cars 2 game for the PS3, Angry Birds and Just Dance games for the PS3, a bag with his name on it that Becca made, underwear, socks, pjs, a robe, tons of clothes, and 13 new Cars diecast cars to add to his collection.

The four of us had such a wonderful Christmas. Me and Dave got spoiled, too, but the best part of it all was spending it with our family and seeing the kids so happy and having so much fun. We were able to spend a little bit of time with Dave's family on Skype which was nice!

Here is a picture of Dave wearing the "back rub" shirt that me and the kids made him. Dawson and Ashlynn can drive cars on the road that we drew and Dave will get a nice back rub! :)

And the kids looked too cute in the their new robes! We're going to hang them up in their bathroom so we can use them after bath time.

Dawson is slouching over because he said he didn't have anymore energy after our busy day! *lol* I hear ya, kid. ;)