Christmas Eve/Day 2011

Christmas Eve

Preparing for our Live Nativity

We borrowed costumes from one of my mom's friends, and they were awesome!

Jemma and Sean as Mary & Joseph (don't you love the beard?)

Hayden and Carter--the cutest donkeys I've ever seen.

The wise people.

the cast.

After reenacting the Nativity story, comes a part of Christmas eve that is the most anticipated of all!  Building our hiding forts to watch Santa in the morning.  Here is Carter and Hayden in their hiding spot.  They were SO quiet on Christmas morning--I think they may have held their breath the whole time!  And Santa, who fell asleep on the couch . . . again . . . touched Sean's BACK! when his hand fell down while he was snoring away.  Sean didn't move a muscle, and as far as we can tell, our secret is still safe, and Santa does not have a clue that there are people all over our family room hiding under tables and behind couches and in the corners watching him deliver his Christmas presents.  Oh, we are good!

Christmas Morning--The kids with their presents from Santa

Look how much of the floor you can't see with the kids and their wrapping paper spread everywhere.

We got Sydney up a little bit later, after the main chaos had died down.  

And she was still pretty groggy.

This year, the husbands did something really fun for us Stone sisters.

They gave us each a card with some letters in it, and we had to combine the letters and unscramble them to find out what the gift was.

And it was . . .

tickets to see Celine Dion in Vegas together!  

Way to go, guys!  Can't wait!

(stole this pic from Jen's blog--Dad was blinking in mine.)

Finally, here's Mom and Dad opening the present from their kids.  

This year we all pitched in to start a mission fund for them.  After all the college tuition and missions they'll have helped pay for by the time Nathan is home from his mission, they won't have had a chance to save for their own mission.  Since they will be some of the best missionaries ever, we had to make sure a fund was  started for them.  It's something that we can all continue to add to as we're able, and more and more of us have jobs.  :)  We love you, Mom and Dad!  

The Christmas Day sickies.  

Poor Emma and Jacob sharing their Christmas dinner of saltines and gatorade.  

After church, we tried to get some pictures of all of us together using a timer on Jen's camera.  I'm pretty sure the little kids were bribed with cupcakes if they would hold still and smile for a few or 10 pictures. 

 All things considered . . . not bad.  

except for Brian looks like he has a bird on his head.

(see my sister Mel's recent blog post here, if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about.)