The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas is magical. I love it! What a wonderful season it has been! On the 18th we hosted a Dastrup Family BYU sports marathon/Christmas party and enjoyed both sports and music.

I wanted to take the kids to see the lights on Temple Square for FHE one night, and although the experience was a little reminiscent of our Halloween trip to Gardner Village, I think the boys all enjoyed it.

On Christmas Eve the boys and I went to Dastrups for the traditional Holdaway party. Like always, the food was amazing and Santa showed up! Jacob had his turn first and tolerated sitting on Santa's lap for a second and then decided he was done. Mrs. Claus tried, but she had no more success, so Jacob took his gift and ran. Ty was up next, and he wanted NOTHING to do with either Santa or Mrs. Claus, so his was a quick turn as well. I could tell that even Benjamin was nervous about his upcoming turn because he kept looking at his watch and asking if it was time to go home. When the time came, however, he swallowed his fears and took it like a man.

Christmas morning, Benjamin was the first one up-- at 12:30 am. Brigham found him crying because he was too tired to make the Christmas movie work on the little TV we'd moved into his room to keep him occupied while waiting for his brothers to wake up. Brigham finally convinced him that it wasn't morning yet and got him to go back to bed. Then Jacob came and crawled into bed with us at 1:20 am (which he never does in the middle of the night anymore-- he must have been excited too). Benjamin re-awoke at 6:00 on the dot. The Christmas frenzy began about 7:00 when Ty woke up last.

What a fun, fun morning! Benjamin was geeked about all of the BYU stuff that he got, Ty was enchanted by the trains and his basketball hoop, and Jacob fell so deeply in love with his Cars book that he didn't even want to open any more presents (those of you who know of his passion for present-opening will recognize this for the amazing event it was). The kids played happily with their new treasures for a couple of hours, and then we went to visit both sets of grandparents where we picked up many more treasures. The beauty of the day was a little marred by Ty throwing up 5 times after I put him to bed that night, but all-in-all it was wonderful. I found Benjamin crying (between rounds of crib sheet changing) his heart out because "my favorite day of the whole year now is 365 days away!" I have to admit: I'm bummed about it too!

(Sorry-- Blogger won't let me upload any more pictures.)