Christmas 2016

Christmas day is one of my most favorite days of the year! I just love the feeling of Christmas :) We woke up to a houseful of presents and ate a fun breakfast of Christmas Tree cinnamon rolls (which I didn't get a picture of darn it).

In true kid form, these two were (not so) patiently waiting for the rest of the family to join them under the Christmas tree to see what Santa had left for them. They were just giddy, running back and forth between the tree and the rest of us, asking if we were ready yet and if they could open gifts. The excitement in the house was simply off the charts!

I politely asked that we not tear through the gifts as fast as we had in previous years. I know...I'm such a downer! But they abided by my request and took turns opening gifts (for the most part), and it was so much more fun! They got to see the excitement in each other's eyes and really pay attention to more than just themselves.

Lincoln got a few larger toys, one being a grill so he can stand outside and grill with daddy. We use our grill year round despite the temps so he's pretty pumped to help daddy!

He also scored this sweet ORANGE snow blower and is over the moon excited! Seriously, I don't understand where this wish-list came from, but he kept telling everyone that Santa was bringing him an orange (his favorite color) snow blower.
Wait...what!?

I'm so thankful that Santa came through! He's going to love helping out next time it snows!

Sidney and Regan used their own money this year (Regan's unprompted idea) to buy each other gifts. Sidney's reaction after opening her shopkins stuffed animal brought tears to my eyes. She raced over to Regan to give her a huge hug and nearly knocked her into the fireplace!

And Sidney scored a Little Live pet dog "Lulu" from Santa. It's the closest thing we're getting to a real pet around here so she's loving her up as much as possible. The thing even breathes like a real dog! Super cute :)

Grandma Jan and Papa came up in the rain (yes, it was raining in Minnesota on Christmas!) with their ugly sweaters to spend the rest of the day with us. At that moment, after seeing their awesome tops, we decided that next year we will ALL be finding ugly Christmas sweaters!! It's our new tradition, and Ryan has already been online looking for his!! I love it :)

We soaked in as much time with them as we could, seeing as though they departed for Texas after leaving us :( but thankfully they gave each of  us plane tickets to come visit and so now we are busy preparing for our winter vacation! 

I had to get a picture of each kiddo in front of the tree and then one together, because they are growing up just so fast.

Lincoln: 3 years old

Sidney: 8 years old (with Lulu)

Regan: 10 years

After a huge lunch with turkey, potatoes, and all of the fixings plus dessert, my dad promptly fell asleep snuggled next to Regan's new gigantic sized teddy bear!

One of my most favorite 'decorations' are all the Christmas cards we get throughout the month. We line them up this wall and occasionally I will find someone standing just staring at them. I found a way to hang on to them for longer than 3 weeks (thanks Pinterest!) and will be creating a cute little album to pull out again year after year. 

                               

I hope you and yours had the most lovely Christmas. Once again, I'm beyond thankful for our health and happiness.

Let's all just pardon Ryan's purple Vikes pants and recall that he had knee surgery only 3 days before Christmas. It added a bit of stress to our holiday but he has seemingly recovered just fine and again, makes us thankful for our health!

 Merry Christmas!

And before I forget, here was our 2016 Christmas Card: