Christmas Memories...

I really can't believe that Christmas is over already! I haven't gotten all of my Christmas decorations up yet. Here are the pictures to document our CRAZY Christmas...

Sydnie with her graham cracker house. Grandma Strong puts these together for us every year.

Grady started eating his house before he even put frosting or candy on it.
Amelia takes decorating her house very seriously! It turned out practically perfect!

On Christmas Eve Amelia wasn't feeling very well so Jason took the kids to his parents house while I stayed home with her. After a couple of hours of just laying in bed on Christmas Eve Amelia was 'feeling better' or more like, 'feeling left out' so we decided to head to grandmas. When we got there I realized she really wasn't doing so well still and I called the doctors office. They advised us to head to the ER to have her checked out. After 'stealing' her blood and a cat scan the Dr. decided that her appendix had ruptured and she would need to have surgery. My Bro Nate and his sweet wife Airaka agreed to put our kids to bed and Amelia gave them strict orders that if they saw Santa they would tell him to come back later! The Surgeon came to the hospital from his Christmas party to check Amelia out. After an examination her told us he thought that she didn't have a ruptured appendix, but instead some big word I don't remember, that meant she had swollen lymph nodes that were causing her pain. To us it was a Christmas miracle! We were so happy that he had figured it out. The nurse told us the same thing had happened to her son, but they didn't figure it out until they had already done the surgery unnecessarily. We are so blessed! Our greatest Christmas gift was having everyone home together on Christmas morning!

We have a silly tradition of blowing up tons of balloons for Christmas morning. We couldn't disappoint the kids, so thanks to Nate and Airaka for staying at our house till after 2 AM making sure we were ready for Santa to come!

Grady's Santa stash...

It looks like Santa was a little cheap this year. I was worried that the kids would be disappointed, but the girls saw our gift to them in the family room downstairs before they came upstairs on Christmas morning. They were really excited about the wii and couldn't really focus on what Santa had brought.

Ainsley loves her new bike and tiny puppy. Sydnie was amazed that even though Ainsley didn't ask Santa for a bike, Santa new that she would love the bike.

Amelia would have been happy with just balloons and her necklace.

Grady with his Laser gun from Grandma and Grandpa.

Sydnie LOVES beads, and the pink Sparkly dress that Santa brought to her. I think Santa must have had a hard time finding a pink Sparkly dress that Syd could wear to church or school in the summer or winter. Good job Santa!

We hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas too!