Christmas in Sheridan

On Sunday, December 26th, we got together with Dave's family at his parent's house in Sheridan. It was a fun day of food, presents and playing with cousins. I told Allison after the fact that you can start to tell that the kids are all getting older...it was still loud and crazy at times with kids running everywhere, but not like it has been in the past. Maybe they were all tired...but I think part is they are getting older!

Here are a few...okay, a lot...of pictures from the fun!!!

Getting ready to open presents...they were all patiently waiting for there presents to be found and passed out!


Action shot...

Aiden starting to unwrap his gift!

Where's Austin? He's inside the bag, trying to get out something at the bottom!! Can you see his legs? Silly boy...

...but he got it! Two stampers!

Landon's turn - he was ready!

A new Transformer comforter for his bed. And checking out the sheets!

Justin with his two sided, spin around, lighted, talking Light Saber. I'm sure it had a cooler name than that, but now you know what all it does! :) The kids all wanted to play with this cool toy!

Austin checking out Blake's binoculars. We have binoculars at home and I am constantly telling them to turn them around. I don't think they understand they are supposed to see this bigger, not smaller! :)

Aiden's turn...

Austin...looking kind of tired...but happy!

Mommy and Landon

Grant with his Iron Man arm thing...he loves Iron Man!

Nate, Landon and Aiden playing.

Evan relaxing in the corner!

Makayla looking at her "lava" lamp.

Austin trying out Grant's Iron Man helmet.

See Austin's eyes?

Blake...eating Cool Ranch Doritos (a gift - he loves them) with no shirt on. Not sure why...

Makayla and Justin just relaxing.

Aiden being silly!

Makayla and Trent taking a break at the table...

Just some fun shots with the cousins...silly boys! Here are some of them...Grant, Evan, Brad, Blake and Aiden (with Justin in the back).

Makayla and Trent...the 6 year olds and best buddies!

Nate and Landon working on some projects!

Brad, Grant, Makayla and Landon

Another silly Aiden shot! I'm not kidding - if he thinks the camera is pointed at him, he will smile! And I just have to take his picture! :)

We try to get pictures of the 5 year olds together each year. They were all born in 2005 - and I cannot believe they are all 5 now! So darn cute! (From L to R - Grant, Brad, Nate, Landon)

And the mom's with their boys! That was a big year in our family! (From L to R: Allison and Brad, Debbie and Grant, Michelle and Nate, Me and Landon)

These last two pictures were from Monday, 12.27. In the cousin gift exchange, Landon got Legos from Trent. He loved them, but because there were so many toys and kids, we wouldn't let him do them on Sunday. That was torture! He was good about it and looked at the book, but he really, really wanted to put them together. We got home too late that night, so he knew he would put them together on Monday. Guess what time Landon was up on Monday? You guessed it - 6:00. I didn't say anything at first and went in to feed the cats before going downstairs. Usually Landon waits for me, but he didn't this time. When I got downstairs, he had the lights on and was holding the Legos box. Priceless!! I convinced him to wait a bit, but as soon as he was done with breakfast, he was on it! He put these together, again with very little help. I think the only time I helped him was when he put something in the wrong place and couldn't get it off! Way to go Landon...good job!

He still doesn't play with them much once put together, but he LOVES to put them together!

It was a great Christmas season!!!

Christmas Day

We had another fun day on Christmas, of course. How can you not have fun when you have little kids in the house? Of course, there are a lot of pictures in this post, but it's hard for me to choose sometimes!!!

Christmas morning came and Landon came bounding into our room at 6:00 a.m. sharp! That boy has always been an early riser, but add the excitement around Christmas and he was up early most days last week! We joked and tried to get him to just wait for the twins to wake up but he of course was ready to go!! So, he and I woke up the boys, got their diapers changed and then went back to wake up daddy. By this time, all 3 boys could barely stand it - they were so cute!!! They just new Santa had come!

I don't have a shot of them coming down the stairs - I had left the camera downstairs and Dave was using one camera to video tape it all, while I grabbed the other one to get still shots. But here are a lot of them opening presents:

The first picture I took - Austin and Landon were quick to get their first one opened!!!


Aiden with his first present!!! (Funny side note - Landon's presents were the tan, Austin's blue and Aiden's red. At one point, Aiden got excited and started to open one of Landon's. We explained it was Landon's and he seemed okay - but then started pouting and saying "but I don't like red presents." Luckily he got right back at it!!!)


Landon with his new tool set - just like daddy's tools!


Aiden opening a school bus - this has been a popular toy with the boys!

Austin opening a present!

And his favorite gift...a Paper Jamz guitar!! At this point he didn't really know what it was, but he already loved it!!!

Landon with a favorite gift...LEGOS! He is so good at putting these together, too!

Austin got his very own Zhu Zhu pet!!!

Aiden checking on the underwear he got! Guess Santa agrees - they are ready to go on the big boy potty! Now if we can just get the boys to agree! :)

Austin checking out his big boy pants!

Let's just say that they both tried underwear on Christmas day (with a pull-up over top) and it did not go so well! Complete with one pair having to be cut off and thrown away. Fun times!

Just a cute one of Aiden!

All done...just look at what was left!!! Fun!

Austin jamming on his guitar...one of the many times this day!

He's pretty good!

All three boys got a Paper Jamz guitar...here's Aiden checking his out!

Aiden - all smiles with Pez in hand!!!

Austin enjoying his Pez! Very serious about it!

Austin and Aiden jamming together! I've got to post a video on here - it's pretty funny to watch them in action! Aiden gets dancing and Austin is very serious about his music, too!

Big smiles!

While the little boys were jamming, Landon was hard at work with his Kinex!!!! Looks like a lot of pieces to me!

Landon isn't really into his guitar yet...he's kind of shy about it! But we did get him to put in on for a little bit that day! Oh - and Christmas day is a pajama day, so they loved being in pj's all day!

Lunch/snack time...and more Kinex for Landon! The twins really wanted to help!

This was about 2:30 in the afternoon...and Aiden couldn't take it anymore!!! So tired!

Looks sort of comfortable! Landon being silly...with his favorite little toy - a transformer!

Austin was working hard on some coloring that afternoon!

Landon had to color, too! A good quiet activity!

And time to play with some Matchbox toys!

Then I look over and Dave and Aiden were both asleep!!! Christmas is exhausting!

Landon ended the afternoon by doing both is Star Wars Legos without ANY help! Way to go Landon!

I love the tongue sticking out! :-)

It was a great day...Merry Christmas!