Christmas 2008

Christmas was busy and fun this year! Manuel’s mom, sister, and her kids all came down on Christmas Eve and stayed through Christmas Day. We made sausage balls, puppy chow, and homemade gingerbread cookies for Santa. It took FOREVER to get all 5 kids in bed and asleep, but we managed to get the milk and cookies out for Santa and put our “magic” Santa Key on our front door so Santa could get in since we don’t have a chimney.

Christmas morning all of the kids were excited to see that Santa had come to see them! Ryan got some new Backugans, a Backugan tin, a dart board, Monopoly Jr., and lots of other goodies! Gabe got a Spongebob skateboard, Camp Rock CD, Connect 4, and a few other fun things too! Tristan, Summer, and Hayley all got sleeping bags, tattoos, and a game or book. Santa even left a few surprises for me and Manuel in our stockings!

After we checked out all of the goodies that Santa brought, we went upstairs and opened our gifts to each other. The boys were super excited to open their new Wii! We got them a few new games and controllers to go with it too, so as you can probably imagine, we spent a big chunk of our afternoon playing them all to check them out! Manuel surprised me with a garnet ring from James Avery that I had my eye on too, so all in all, it was a great day!

Friday afternoon, the boys and I headed to Abilene to have Christmas at my mom’s house with Justin and Hayley. Manuel had to work Friday night and was on call the whole week, so he wasn’t able to go with us. We had a nice dinner at Mom’s Friday and then opened our gifts. Mom got the boys new bed sets for their rooms, which was the first thing we had to put up when we got home. I got a new trash can, which seems silly, but I was very excited to be able to get rid of our old piece of junk one and use the new one!

Saturday we went to Fay and Chuck’s house to have Christmas with Mom’s family. There was tons of great food and then we did our traditional Chinese Christmas. I ended up with a pretty bubble vase (which didn’t get stolen), so I was happy! After that, the boys and I stopped by Granny and Papa’s house on our way home. The rest of the weekend, we spent relaxing and enjoying all of our new goodies.

What Santa brought Ryan and Gabriel

Santa's goodies for Haley, Summer and Tristan

Ryan and Gabriel's new Wii!!!

My new ring from Manuel!

Tristan with his new Nintendo DS from Grandma Rosemary!

Summer's got a new DS too from her mom!

Hayley got lots of new clothes. Everytime she would open something new, she would say how Beautiful it was! She is going to be our fashion queen!