Christmas 2012

This Christmas was a very special one for us, as it was going to be the first of many Christmas' in our home. I remember as a kid waking up Christmas morning at my house and running down the hall seeing all the Christmas presents Santa had left.  One year I slept with a flashlight and woke up my brother in the middle of the night to go scope out all our gifts.  Waking up Christmas morning at home is something I want my kids to always remember and cherish as I did.

But first its Christmas Eve and the tradition of tamale making lives on.  Jake, Madden and I left San Diego early Christmas Eve morning as Skylar had been up at my parents already and we wanted to go see her and we knew we needed to get there early to start working on tamales.  My Aunt Sandra has really stepped up with making the homemade chili sauce and brought over a massive pot of it.  Now that I have two kids, I kind of get a pass at helping as I'm watching over the kids, but this year I was able to help out a bit more.  Toni definitely deserved the MVP award as she was the one who was constantly helping and folded each and every tamale we made.  I will also give my Dad an honorable mention as he did a great job spreading dozens of tamales.  This year we did 35 pounds of maiz which felt like the never ending bowl of maiz. After about 2 1/2 hours, we made about 8-10 dozen tamales.  It was more than we did the year before, but it was worth it, because we were all able to take home a bag of tamales and sauce as leftovers.

I must admit now, I did a really bad job at taking picture at Christmas Eve.  I was busy with kids and Madden had a pretty horrible cold, so I had tissues in my hand most the night, not the camera, but I did my best.

Skylar was in a great mood the whole day, which we were lucky about because she refused to take a nap.  At one point in the night she wanted to have her own dance party in my parents garage and we couldn't get her to stop dancing.  It was pretty cute as she was entertaining all of us.

Since we were driving home that night we wanted to start the present opening earlier rather than later for the kids.  Madden was taking his last nap of the night with Jake so Skylar took over opening up all his and her presents.  Per tradition I took the lead and passed out all the kids gifts and ran the adult white elephant gift exchange, hence another reason why we only have a few pictures of present opening.

All in all, it was a nice Christmas Eve, I know next year when Madden is older and able to participate more its really going to be fun.  We were very grateful for all the gifts my family got the kids and would call Christmas Eve a big success.

Both kids past out on the drive home.  Skylar was in the middle of singing "Jingle Bells Rocks" and was asleep half way through the song.  We got both kids transferred into bed with no problem and Jake and I put all the Christmas presents around the tree.

The kids woke up at their normal times and we took them downstairs together to see what Santa had brought them.  Skylar had been talking about getting a scooter from Santa for weeks but once she saw it, she had no interest in it and only wanted to play with Madden's push toy Santa brought him.  At least Madden had fun with the scooter.  

Small side note: I thought I was doing the smart thing by putting the kids in their Christmas Pajamas at my parents house since I knew we were going to put them straight to bed when we got home.  Well, Madden decided to poop all over this Christmas jammies on the drive home, so that is the reason he isn't wearing his.  I was pretty bummed to say the least.

Present opening was a lot of fun, but it also took awhile.  Every time Skylar opened up a toy she wanted it immediately out of the box and wanted to play with it for a while until we could convince her to open the next present.  Madden was such a joy and even with a horrible running nose he had such a smile on his face all morning.  His favorite gift had to be the set of bongo's Papa got him.

That night Jake and I (well mostly Jake) made a lovely dinner for my parents and my grandma.  No complaints about our first Christmas in our home.  Looking forward to many more!!