Christmas and New Years

We had a busy and fun Christmas! This the first year we have been lucky enough to have both sides of the family nearby and we enjoyed being able to see almost everyone!

Here is a few pictures of our Christmas...

Santa came!

Since the tree that we wanted Santa to put the presents under wasn't the tree that was in the same room as the fire place, we made arrow signs so Santa would know were to go.  

Waiting until 7:00 to wake everyone else up.  We had Tyler's parents and three of his sisters and a bother in law here.  It was so fun to have such a full house!

Waiting to go down the stairs.

Isaac's big Santa present, a skate board. 

Luke got roller blades.

Andrew got a play kitchen.  Tyler said they are just for girls, but I disagree and Andrew loves it.  He makes a good bowl of soup for his Mommy.  

We spent the rest of the day playing with toys, video games, doing puzzles, eating good food, relaxing, and being together.

 We also had a really fun New Years Eve.  We let the big boys stay up late.  Here's the proof.

Only 42 seconds left!

We did a few things that I found on Pinterest.  I made a bag for each hour, starting at 7, that had an activity to do.  They loved it.  At 7 we did a New Years time capsule and played a game were we drew a question from a list I found online.  It was fun to hear the boys' answers.  At 8 we made brownies and played a board game.  At 9 we played balloon volleyball. At 10 we played flashlight limbo and then Murder in the Dark. Anyone remember playing that as a kid? My kids loved it.  At 11 we ate the brownies and put together puzzles. I don't have pictures of those activities, but I did get one of the last thing we did.  At midnight we blew noise makers and just at the ball dropped, we had our own balloon drop. 

The boys loved it.  And having an activity an hour helped keep everyone happy (except when Isaac lost at balloon volleyball.  That boy is competitive!) and helped the night not seem to last forever.  In fact we kept everyone so entertained that even my mother in law, who is not known for staying up late, made it to midnight for the first time in a long time!

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and best wishes to all for the New Year.  May 2013 be a good one!