I believe in Santa!

Christmas is my FAVORITE time of the year! I love everything about it from the Spiritual side to the materialistic side. I love the Christmas story of Mary and Joseph. I've decided after doing our Young Women's program which was about Christmas from the perspective of Mary's mom, Joseph's mom, the Innkeeper's wife, the Shepherd's wife, John's mother and Mary herself, that I LOVE the Christmas story and the beauty of it all even MORE. I LOVE the music, which I'm only allowed to play AFTER Thanksgiving, I LOVE watching how excited my kids get, I LOVE the decorations, I LOVE getting a tree, I LOVE Santa, I LOVE the madness of shopping, I LOVE waiting till the LAST minute to wrap everything and arranging it under the tree. I just LOVE Christmas!

This year we were invited over to our friends, the Wrights house for dinner on Christmas Eve. I work with Jenni in with the Young Women at church. Maggie is a BFF of Amber and Jacob. There of course was TONS of great food and laughs.
The Wrights


Amber, Maggie, Jacob, Taylor, Tim and Hunter


We left early in hopes of getting the kids in bed early. Jacob surprised us all when he trotted off to bed at about 8:45. I KNEW he would be up in several hours for two reasons. He NEVER goes to bed that early and 2nd he has a hard time sleeping on Christmas Eve to begin with. From the time he was little he has found it hard to sleep on Christmas Eve. I think he is alot like me in how we feel about Christmas. It's just so exciting! Finally all the kids were asleep and I could get to work. Actually I had wrapped quite a bit already, which is NOT the norm for me. After getting everything wrapped and put around the tree and off to bed at around 12:30, a Christmas miracle for sure, I hear something going on in the living room. I lay there for a minute deciding if I should check on it. Yes, I better see whats going on out there. WELL, first off the living room has been transformed! SANTA had come!! And then I see Jacob on the couch. Just as I had suspected earlier when he told me he was going to bed, he could NOT sleep! He was so excited to see that Santa had come. He must have heard the same noise I had heard earlier and come downstairs. I told him he needed to go upstairs and try and go back to sleep or watch a movie, but he was NOT to wake anyone up! Two movies later Taylor, Hunter and Jacob are waking me up. It was 5:00am, Santa had come and they wanted to open their gifts. Amber was not awake and they wanted to wake her up. NO WAY!!! I told them. So since Dave had gotten up earlier with a coughing fit and went to the couch, I had the kids get in bed with me. I told them at 5:30 they could wake Amber up. So we laid in my bed talking about what they thought Santa had brought. It was so nice laying there with them until it got too hot and we decided to get up.

They were able to get Amber up after a bit of coaxing, she wasn't all that happy about it, but she came downstairs. After all Santa had come leaving her the most wonderful gift. A large cardboard cutout of Edward Cullen. Once downstairs the opening frenzy began! What a fun morning. Everyone seemed happy with what Santa had brought and the other gifts they received. After the mess had been cleaned up, the kids were pulling their gift cards together to see how much they could add to the WII fund (they are saving up for one), Dave found two more gifts that Santa must have forgotten to put out. He gave one to the boys to open and one to the girls to open, but they had to open them on his count. On the count of three they tore into them and were in complete shock! The kids had done such a great job saving for the WII that Santa got it for them AND Guitar Hero world tour. They couldn't believe it. They were soooooo excited. They laughed and screamed. It was so fun watching them. Needless to say they have been playing it non-stop. I will admit it is VERY fun to play. I have discovered I am secretly a rock star!
So there really is a Santa and Christmas miracles really do happen!
Merry Christmas!

href="http://www.slide.com/pivot?cy=bb&at=un&id=3170534137671142497&map=2" target="_blank">