Christmas day

Christmas Morning. 

The kids come and get into bed with us until everyone wakes up. 

I thought they were cute and took their picture.

The kids went out and had fun opening presents. 

Then I opened my present which was a camera and all the pictures from now on came from that new camera. It is a much better camera, but I am still trying  to learn how to use it.

The boys all had just a couple of small presents (mostly books) and then we gave them their big present.

They were so excited! It was so quiet from then on. they were just so focused on using it.

I know, we are crazy. We got them all an I pod touch.

We figured it would save our sanity with the asking to share and not wanting to share problems.

They love them of course- and it keeps them very quiet.

It was the quietest Christmas morning we have every had.

 All we have on them are the free apps so far. We have started looking into books, but have not gotten very far on that yet. I'm sure we will get into music, but we are not in a hurry.
It has only been one week you know.

 The kids love to "play together" they watch each other or play the same game at the same time, or something. It is cute to watch.

My new camera takes panoramas. Here is our living room on Christmas morning. 

Oh ya, you can see Andre's big box. Andre got surround sound speakers for Christmas. We have had the wires for this since before Alex was born. They have been just sticking out of the wall. That would be about 7 years ago. We got them! Let me tell you. It is amazing feeling the movie as well as watching it. And, I can hear it all the way upstairs too. Hmm. 

Jaxon is not into team sports. That is fine. We do not push him. But he has not loved watching sports either. That is fine too. But I know he would like it if he tried. Andre put a free NFL app on his I-pod. Jaxon did not really want it on there. But he tried it. He loves it. He is playing the game, learning the rules and the teams and getting really excited about winning. I hope we have not created a monster!  

Stories:

As I was getting Chase ready for bed on Christmas Eve, he told me that he was going to sneak out of his room in the night and catch Santa. I told him that that is not really how it works. That Santa won't bring the toys if kids are awake. He thought about it and then said that He was going to go to the north pole and go to Santa's house! I asked him how he was going to do that. He said that he would go down Santa's Chimney.Then I talked to him about how far away the north Pole was and how it was super snowey and cold outside. How was he going to get to the North Pole? He thought and thought. Then he said in a matter of fact voice, I guess I am going to have to get teleporting powers then.  Like he was going to find those powers in his underwear drawer or something. 

On Christmas day Chase told me something that he found amazing. He was totally weirded out by it. "Mom, did you know that Santa goes to 122 house in a night? In ONE night. One hundred and twenty two houses. That is a lot of work."


We had the Bartlome Christmas dinner at our house this year. Gordon and Carol sold their house and live in a temporary apartment. They can't have lots and lots of people there.
We have a big basement and volunteered to have the party here. BUT I didn't want to do it on Christmas day. We still wanted to see Gordon and Carol on Christmas day. So we invited them over for dinner.

 And we played games. We have discovered the Settlers of Catan game. It is very fun.

It is way too hard for Chase to remember which grandpa is grandpa Young or grandpa Bartlome. 

For this reason, Chase calls this grandpa, "grandpa with no hair". 

AND because she is connected to him, this grandma is called, "the grandma with no hair". 

I have evidence that she DOES in fact have hair. It is right there in this picture.