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Christmas Morning

We've had a tradition of gathering with the Orchard family on Christmas morning for breakfast.  It was a fun tradition but as the family grew and Russell's siblings became grandparents it made it hard to gather everyone on such a crazy morning.  This year we had the Orchard breakfast the Saturday before Christmas and that seemed to work out really well.  Saturday will be our new tradition.  I was so excited to get to stay home and be lazy on Christmas day.  When I asked the boys what they wanted for breakfast they picked Christmas Casserole and homemade cinnamon rolls, the very thing we have at the Orchard party!  It was fun to get to eat them twice in the same week!  Stockton spent the last 2 months with early morning basketball practice so Mason was in the habit of waking early!  Fortunately for us he managed to sleep until 7:00 on Christmas morning!
Sit on the stairs so mom can take your picture before you walk in and see your presents.
This year we wanted to keep Christmas kind of small and go to Disneyland in January.  We gave the kids a $100 budget.  Douglas had a few gifts...an IOU for a Cottonwood baseball jacket, a case for his Ipad Mini, polarized fishing glasses and some baseball socks and sports tape.  He also got clothes from mom and dad.
Stockton REALLY wanted a ping pong table but we weren't sure if we had enough room in the basement and it was slightly over his budget, but not by much.  We gave Santa permission to go for it since it would provide lots of entertainment for everyone.  It is nice of Stockton to ask for a family gift like that!
He also got some clothes and a mini pump for his basketballs.

I always have the most pictures of Mason.  He is still so little and cute!  He really wanted a magicians hat and wand so he could do some real magic but Santa thought he might like something else instead.  Santa has that right!  His main gift was a Lego Marvel Xbox game.  He was happy about that.  He also got 2 Skylanders, a remote control truck that he drove off of the ping pong table the day after Christmas and destroyed!!, and a Monster hat from mom and dad that was against my best judgement to buy.  It is one of those AS SEEN ON TV items that he begs for every time a commercial comes on.  He wants it all.  It was one of those silly things that an experienced mom doesn't cave to but the poor kid is only 5.  It is not fair that his mom is so practical.  I succumbed.  I now regret!  He has no intentions of really wearing it!  He just wanted to squeeze the tassel so the ears would pop up.




After the gifts were opened we ate breakfast and had the rest of the day to play with our stuff.  We found out that Stockton is a really good ping pong player!  He is the person to beat.  Douglas got his Ipad situated in his case and Mason spent the morning playing his new video game.
At about 3:00 we went to have dinner with Grandpa Murry and Grandma Lee.  They always work so hard to fix us a nice meal.  It was delicious!

I have to admit that Christmas was really stressful for me this year.  I am not certain why.  I didn't have things as prepared and organized as I usually do.  I felt like I didn't get a lot of time to sit and do puzzles and watch Christmas movies like I would like.  I cooked and cleaned and felt a little under appreciated.  I know that is my fault for letting the stress of things get to me.  But I did REALLY enjoy the day we had to spend together.  Christmas Day of 2013 was the best one ever!  
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