Last, I promise. (until New Year's)

Daffodil and Aunt Kate...

Aunt Sarah and Tess...

Nona and Tess...

Uncle Tom and Isabelle with his gift to her. 

Breakfast...

Mimi gets the honor of opening the Moon Dough barn. 

Each year I like to do something from Williams Sonoma like these pancake molds. One year we did princess and trucks but I failed to see that there was actually a snazzy little squeezy bottle that is required in order to get them filled properly. Oh and it also helps if you use Williams Sonoma's recipe too. :)

This year we got it right...

Boys are into Star Wars and the girls got the Holiday themed ones.

The first one. Not bad, Yoda.

Mimi is probably going to strangle me for posting this but it was the only picture I had of the breakfast table...

Preston could not get enough of his green Transformer guys. Sorry, I am not so great at the correct terminology. :)

And MORE...

Oliver has a new fascination with Sesame Street...or "street" as he calls it.

Eli loves his new car...from Nona and Kev.

Amelia was a lucky duck and got something from Abercrombie too...

And I got a new hand mixer. And, yes, I was actually excited!

MORE...

Preston with his Germany soccer scarf from Jax...

Nona and Kev with the platter the kids made...

Eli missed the first hour of opening gifts because sleep is his priority, as we all know!

Isabelle got a book about Mother Theresa. She was super duper excited!

Eli opening his first gift from Santa...my fav thing was that "Santa" wrapped all of the gifts in the CUTEST paper with Elves on it and Santa's workshop. Santa usually does a theme every year. :)

Ollie with his soccer scarf from Jax...

And Eli in his glory getting the hang of it...

Christmas...

Isabelle made Ollie's day. He has been admiring this Moon Dough barn on TV for the last 6 months...

All the kids enjoying each other and Christmas...

Santa FINALLY brought Ollie is very own sleeping bag...

Yes, the girls got MANY of the same things because we all know what happens if they don't...

The boys loving the gifts they got each other. Ollie picked out this super green air blaster gun to give to Preston.

Do you think Isabelle is totally geeked that she FINALLY gets something from Abercrombie Kids?

Jaqueline bought each of the girls a "cow" Pandora charm. There is a story behind this lovely animal, but let's just say that the cow signifies the town where Jax lives. :)

The girls and their "big sister."

Amelia and her charm.

Christmas Morning

The girls were happy to see their mom back from Charlevoix!

P Dog and his favorite guy...

Amelia bought me beautiful handmade earrings and magnets at a craft show!

Preston picked out a beautiful basket full of bath items at his school store! 

You don't think the girls liked what they got each other, do you?

Isabelle got daddy a tailgating apron at her school store...guess I know what we are going to be doing next Fall!

Here is Amelia ALL SMILES at 6 am Christmas morning. No surprise there!

Christmas Eve

Thank goodness I was WAY more organized this year than last. Normally, Scott and i both procrastinate and wait until Christmas Eve night to do all of the "preparation." Each year we tell ourselves that we are not going to do "that" again and we are going to actually sit down, eat snacks and watch a Christmas movie together after the kids are fast asleep. This year happened a little different. I was on call for a birth in Petoskey and sure enough I got the call FIRST THING Christmas Eve morning saying the birth was imminent. My nerves and adrenalin kicked in and I made a mad dash to get all of the remaining wrapping done, organized each child's "pile" for Scott and headed to Petoskey. Once there, my client was 6 cm which is great progress! So I thought. I had visions of delivering the baby at 2:30, flying out of there and making to meet my family for Mass. Nope. Not happening. The baby knew she was destined to be a Christmas baby and waited until EXACTLY 12:00 Midnight, Christmas morning. Oh man was I missing my kids and Scott. But this is what I signed up for and to help this first time mom, in the end, was an amazing gift. As I sat in the labor room, I got periodic texts from my dear friend Mary, whose family joined ours for the evening. She updated me on how well Scott dressed the kids (yes, all matching-thanks daddy), and how well they sat through a service of one hour and forty-five minutes! Yikes! And then to dinner where they were visited by Santa and, of course, got their stockings and such special gifts from Mimi and Papu and the Cueter's. It was then time for them to head back home to get into bed in time for Santa to make his way to our house. My amazing mom was already there putting gifts out and getting things ready for Christmas morning. What would we do without family??? I appreciate every minute of it! By the time I got home at 2:30 am, the tree looked incredible. I wanted to take it all in and capture the image in my memory because in no more than a few hours, the kids would work their magic and have the entire living room in disarray.