Okay- I feel like I better give a little overview before I jump into our Christmas Post, so here is what we had planned, you'll notice a few adjustments we had to make later on.
Friday the 23rd- Head up to Morgan for Dinner
Saturday the 24th- Spend the day in Morgan and do Christmas Eve
Sunday the 25th- Christmas morning in Morgan, Church in Morgan and then to the Peaden house at about 3.Then sleep over at the Peaden house that night.
Monday the 26th- Spend the day at the Peaden House and then either sleep there another night or maybe go home.
Right off the bat things did not go as planned. On Thursday Shantel was really sick and was still recovering on Friday. It was not until about 3 pm that we decided to actually go up Friday night because we thought about letting Shantel rest Friday night. We left later than planned and ended up buying the kids hamburgers and chicken nuggets on the way up and then getting them in bed when we got there. It ended up being really nice because we ended up just spending the night talking to Matt and Brooklyn since no one else had come yet. We have not spent a ton of time with just them since they got married and it was great to talk to them. We ended up watching the Christmas Studio C and an episode of Random Acts. As a side note, I love Random Acts and am so glad it just got renewed for Season 2, even if we cry every time we watch it.
The next day we had a nice day. Brooklyn had her computer with her drawing tool and the kids loved playing with it. Brooklyn was so nice to sit with them and play.
That night we made some little pizza's for the kids (it was a little crazy and no one else was hungry yet, so we did the family pizza's later). Then we let them open the Christmas Eve present. This year we did a nativity scene with stickers and a Nativity DVD. Lydia really loved putting the stickers on because each one had the shape outlined where it was supposed to go.
Then we did pictures by the Christmas tree and the kids put the stockings out.
Oh and Austin and Lydia took turns climbing on my shoulders and then jumping off. It was good, but a little bit hectic Christmas Eve.
During the day we started the Walker Cup Championship. We've done this 2 of the past 3 years (last year was an off year), Shantel and I won the first year, Jenna and Kevin the 2nd year. The Championship consisted of 4 competitions, target shooting with a nerf gun, a tank game on the wii, foosball, and 30 (a dice game). We played the first three during the day. Shantel and I won the target shooting and took the early lead. Things went downhill quickly though, we got crushed in foosball and the wii tanks. The competition came down to this dice game that we played that night. You have 3 rolls to try and get at least 30 points with 6 dice and if you get less, you lose points, if you get more, the person next to you loses points.
We may not have won, but I could not have asked for a better teammate.
Melissa and Matthew are super cool and ordered a super awesome custom trophy. It has a cup on top and on the front says, "Walker Family Cup in Recognition of Outstanding Awesomeness."
It came right down to the end with Scott going up against Melissa in dice with the winner taking it all. Scott beat her and Scott and Jacob ended up as the 2016 Champions.
Right before the Championship we made pizza, the chicken and bacon was super delicious and we did pepperoni as well. After the championship we made Frappe with Lime Sherbet.
Then we set out the kids Christmas stockings and presents from Santa. For Lydia we gave her Chase and Skye Paw Patrol Pups with their Paw Patrollers. Austin got a CD player. We know that is a random gift for a 2 year old, but he loves putting CD's in and taking them back out and dancing to the music. In their stockings they got a few chocolate santa's, fruit snacks, applesauce squeezers, an orange, a few candies and then Lydia got a paw patrol watch and CTR bracelet, and Austin got marbles.
We let the kids go up and see their stockings and they were happy and excited. Lydia loved her watch, but both of them really loved the candy and fruit snacks and dove right into that.
We opened presents together and although it was a little rushed since people had to leave around 9, everyone had a great time. Some of the highlights were: chopsticks for Shantel, some desktop decorations and coasters for me, roller skates for Lydia and a new V-tech racing track for Austin.
In addition, Shantel and Jenna have been working for the last year and a half on a quilt for Scott made out of his DWR jeans. They finally got it done for Christmas this year.
We did a special breakfast with biscuits and gravy that Jenna made.
Then Lydia was so excited to try out her roller skates. It was awesome to see how happy and excited she was racing along the kitchen floor. She looked so cute with her knee pads and elbow pads.
Austin's favorite thing by far was the tape measure that he got in his stocking. Whenever he finds one of our tape measures around the house, he can spend hours going around measuring things, so we decided he would love his own. The funny thing is we originally bought the one you see in the pictures below, but then found on Amazon a set of 4 that were made of more fabric material. We were a little concerned about the real one snapping back and hitting him in the face. We ended up putting the one of the fabric ones in his stocking and he did not love it. After we wrapped the real one and he absolutely loved it and was going around measuring everything in the house.
On our drive we talked a lot about what we want Christmas to be like for our kids. We have always known at some point we would want to do Christmas Eve/Morning and our own home, but so far had been happy to go to the Walker's for Christmas Eve/Morning and then to the Peaden's to make sure we could get everyone on Christmas. However, we both felt like Christmas Eve/Morning had been....hectic. We obviously loved being there and had a good time, but we did not really feel like we gave our kids the kind of Christmas/attention to make sure it was special for them. Everything felt kind of rushed or squeezed in and for the first time, we really feel like we might need to change to make sure our kids get the kind of Christmas we grew up with. Some of the things that are important to Shantel and I from her growing up are making pizza and telling the Christmas story. For me it was eating Christmas roll and Frappe and then lining up to go see our presents on Christmas morning. In addition, we now have our Christmas Eve present and we want to make sure we have time to really make sure we spend Christmas Eve really thinking about Jesus Christ.
When we have talked about what to do for Christmas before it has just not been very clear, but I feel like we really had such a more clear vision on our drive on how we need to simplify things and focus our attention to our kids. Next year we are planning to do Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning at our own house. This will give us the chance to start creating our own family traditions and memories for our kids. We can take things at their own pace and enjoy that time with them. Then once we do breakfast and the kids have had a chance to play with their toys we can head to either the Peaden's or the Walker's. We can spend the rest of Christmas with one of the families and then go to the other family the next day. Obviously we will have to sacrifice seeing both families on Christmas every year, but we really feel like it will give us the chance to make some really special memories with our own little family.
We still feel like family time is important, so we'll probably try to add a Walker Family Christmas party so we can use that time for the Walker Cup Championship and really spending time with them.
Okay- on the Christmas the Peaden House.
We did the annual passing out of presents. Everyone was there except Wendy and Sam who came the next day and Matt and Julie who were at home in Indiana.
After things were a bit hectic at the Walker house trying to get everything done before everyone took off, we tried to take things a little slower in the afternoon. Our kids loved opening the presents and had so many wonderful things. All the grandkids opened first (with dinner in the middle of it) and we tried to let Austin and Lydia play with things as they went to really enjoy it. Some of the favorite things were the Paw Patrol Pups from Uncle Bruce and also from Grandma for Lydia and the tool bench set for Austin. My dad also made a custom marble track for the marbles that he got from Amy.
That night the adults opened presents and we really enjoyed watching everyone open the gifts and see how happy everyone was.
We had planned to stay the night at the Peaden house, but with Lydia's ear infection/ear ache, we were not sure she would make it through the night and so we drove home late that night and back early the next morning. The very first thing Lydia wanted to do was use her new snow shovel. We went in the back yard and had a blast clearing snow of the back porch. Eventually Lydia made her way all through the yard. Austin and Shantel had fun watching from the warm house.
The Rencher's came in the morning and opened presents. In the afternoon Lydia, Aubrey and my dad worked for over an hour on a gingerbread house. Lydia usually does not sit in any one spot for more than one minute and it was amazing to see her sit with her Grandpa for so long and work on the gingerbread house. After we went to visit my Grandma, Grandma Peaden (our kids call her Grandma Joyce). It was nice to see her and wish her a Merry Christmas. We took her a pear that we received in a gift box and Wendy and Sam and Aubrey brought her flowers. That evening we played games for a while while our kids slept and then packed them in the car to go home.
One of our favorite traditions is exchanging stockings with each other. Since we do stockings with the Walker family, we actually get two stockings because we like to do them with each other too. Usually we do this first thing Christmas morning before anyone else wakes up, but with the ear ache and everything going on, we pushed it back until that night. It actually was great because we were both so excited and had looked forward to it for the past two days. Shantel was so sweet and had a nice hammer, an Arby's gift card with my favorite treats and candies (Dove Dark Chocolates included) and she got a new set of kitchen scissors, a Del Taco Gift card and some treats. Being with her as our capstone to Christmas was the perfect way to celebrate.
Merry Christmas to all!
