Christmas Day

Winners for the most annoying toy: The Arnesons (my sister's family). They were kind enough to seek ou the most annoying toy they could possibly find and bestow it upon our child.

It's called a Yakkity Yak voice recorder. Seems innocent enough, but it is incredibly LOUD. Here is how it works: the child presses a button, it beeps loudly, something like a smoke detector whose batteries are getting low, the child says something into it, the device plays it back either very slow or very fast. Playing it back fast sounds something like the dolphin chatter effect from Spongebob Squarepants. This wouldn't be so bad if kids weren't so enthralled with the toy. They play it back over and over and over and over...

"Why", you might ask, "would someone want to punish you with this device?" Apparently when Steve was a baby, we bought him, (with no malicious intent) a baby keychain that made noises. An innocent baby toy! Really, I don't think it's just punishment.

And how do you get back at parents who willingly purchase drums for their kids? I don't think we could get revenge if we tried!

We had a wonderful and busy Christmas! We started out opening presents at home. So far, our kids have been really good about not getting us up early on Christmas morning. In fact, last year my parents called and woke us up. They had been sitting in the driveway waiting for us to get up so they could come in! This year, the kids slept until probably 7:30 and we called my parents when they woke up!

As usual, Santa kind of over did it with our kids. But they're great kids and have been pretty good. They both got lightsabers. I know, we already had five lightsabers, but Hunter told Santa he needed another and of course Dakota got one, too! They got the XBox that Dakota has been asking for along with a nice selection of games.

Santa even brought the dogs blankets for their kennels, despite the fact that last time we got them blankets, Princess ate them. Literally consumed them. So far so good, though. She hasn't tried to eat this one! And really, why should Haley suffer because Princess is insane?

After Christmas morning here, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Phipps' for more presents and Christmas dinner. Yummy ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, all the fixins. It was nice to see everyone. Dakota and Hunter were thrilled to see their cousins. Aidan gave Dakota and Hunter a small Cookie Monster snow globe. It was so sweet! With all of our different schedules, it's hard for us to get together!

After my parents, we made a quick stop home to unload and then headed to Paul's cousin Tim's house. Fortunately both my parents and Tim live within a few miles of us, so we didn't do much traveling. Paul's Aunt Carol and Uncle Pat were there as well as his parents and Robert. We spent some time visiting with them. They had food, too, but by that time I was stuffed!

We had a really wonderful Christmas. I'm so glad that we are able to spend it with our families.