Christmas 2010 - We are blessed

What a wonderful Christmas we enjoyed!  We are truly blessed.  Or maybe just spoiled?  Either way Santa brought a ton of presents to our house this year.  Probably too many.

Santa was able to refresh all of our kitchen stuff, and I mean all of it.  We have had the same stuff since we were married 13 years ago so it was a welcome update.  Our family gifts (those from Santa but labeled for the whole family) included new plates, new glasses, new silverware, a new toaster, and a new crockpot.  And Dad got a new deep fryer from the kids and mom.  Mom got the baby cake maker from the kids (a mini cupcake maker).  And Dad was extremely spoiled by some of his coworkers at work who gave him a new Rice cooker.  Seriously..we have a whole new kitchen and actually had to rearrange some cupboards to fit all of the stuff in them.

Other family gifts from Santa were some movies:  Despicable Me, How to Train Your Dragon, Karate Kid, Diary of a Whimpy Kid, and the Bourne series. 

Kennedy got some much needed long sleeve shirts, a nice "church" coat, an MP3 player, a new Bedspread, and some whiteboard calendars to decorate her room.  Her brother gave her a DS game. Her grandparents and cousins added more clothes, books, a cute blingy hat, money, and a Pillow Pet.

Oaklan got some new toys.  One of the ones we like the most is called the Fisher Price iXL.  It's a toddler version of a game system/mp3 player.  He has always been jealous of Kennedy's DS and we always had a fight in the car when Oaklan touched the game and Kennedy wouldn't share.  This is a terrific system.  Not too difficult for him.  It includes games but you are also able to load MP3's and photos on it.  So we loaded songs like wheels on the bus, twinkle twinkle little star, head shoulders knees and toes.  He LOVES it.  That was a great gift.  He also received the Tonka Chuck Stunt sets.  There are 4 sets total.  His sister gave him two.  And grandparents gave him two so he has the entire set.  Pretty cool trucks that do tricks on these sets.  But they take up a lot of room.  One of his favorite gifts which came from Santa was his new potty chair.  It was like the 2nd gift he opened and we struggled to get him to leave it alone and move to the next gift.  In fact, the whole day was that way.  Open a gift, get obsessed with it, and scream when we wanted him to open the next gift.  We ended up opening a lot of gifts for him.  Mostly clothes, and a new coat. 

Mom and Dad got clothes.  Dad got some books.  Mom got some boots and new glasses. But the best gifts for Mom and Dad were new Smartphones.  LOVE THEM!  Staci's phone was pretty much dead.  It would shut off and reboot while you were in the middle of a conversation, and then it wouldn't let you answer a new call until you took the battery out and restarted it.  This was a much needed upgrade too.  We didn't even have a data plan before, just phones so this was a big new adventure too.  And with a shared plan you both have to upgrade to the data plan so Brian got one too.  We got the HTC EVO 4G's.

We were mostly healthy and happy for a long fun day of visiting family.  Kennedy did get an upset stomach but we found out it was just that she had a glass of OJ on an empty stomach.  Adding some food and aspirin made her feel better.  We are blessed to have family that lives so close to us.  First across the street to Staci's parents where we meet up with Brett and Amber.  Then once we head to West Weber we have to visit everyone.  First to Staci's Grandparents, then two blocks away is Brian's Grandma's where the whole family meets for lunch.  Then two more blocks from that is Brian's Mom's house where we move to so we can exchange family gifts there.  Then about a 10 min drive back towards the house to Staci's other Grandparents house where we pick up dinner.  And then about 10 mins home.  It's a long day but so much fun to visit and play with cousins! 

Thank you to everyone.  We love you all and really are truly blessed!