Christmas day!!!

We were all so excited for Santa to come so Tatum got the plate ready with cookies, a carrot and milk.

And here's what the kids were greeted with the next morning. He came!!!

Ty loves his new ride on toy!

And Tatum loves her new bike and princess dolls!

Ty also got a tool belt and power tools, what more could a man ask for?! :)

After the chaos and excitement of unwrapping all of Santa's presents, (wow, Santa really packages those toys up. You practically need to use power tools to get them open!) we enjoyed a yummy breakfast of Monkey bread and an egg bake and then headed into tackle the gifts under the tree. Everyone gets a picture next to their pile.

Look at this sweet man. He wasn't too sure what was going on and wanted to unwrap and play with his sisters gifts more than his. :)

Can you tell she's excited to rip into these?!

Wow, what a pile!

My job was writing down all the gifts on the thank you card list...

but Ty decided to make his own list. :)

And what's better than taking your new gifts outside and trying them out! Tatum loves her bike but is a little reluctant to do much biking. I guess it takes some practice.

And Ty can't quite reach the pedals but quickly learned how to push with his feet and gets around the driveway pretty well. He also loves his new snow hat! :)

And Grandma bought Ty a tent with a tunnel and he loves it! Oh the fun of Christmas! Merry Christmas to all our friends and family!

On the twenty fourth day of Christmas...

We headed to the Children's Mass for church. Ty had a fever and had been very fussy so we left Garrett home with the kids and my mom and I went to Mass together. We met up with my friend Susan and family and enjoyed singing and spending time with them. Garrett was busy cooking while we were away and made a delicious meal of lobster and steak with cheesy mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. Yum!!! What an excellent chef!

After a filling meal and opening our traditional presents of pjs, we drove over to Christmas Card Lane in Rancho Penasquitos, the neighborhood over from us. It was really crowded so we just drove around and checked out all the houses. Every house had a card up in front with different characters and sayings. So pretty!

We all had our favorites and this was one of Tatum's. She loves Nemo.

If we lived in this neighborhood and wanted to participate, I said I would choose Winnie the Pooh for my character and Tatum said she would choose a princess but Daddy said Transformers for sure. :)

On the twenty third day of Christmas...

We went to Pump It Up! Not a very Christmasy activity but soooooo much fun!

If you're not sure what Pump It Up is, it's a place with lots of bounce house items that you pay to enjoy for a few hours. We had heard about this place and thought about having Tatum's birthday party here but wanted to check it out. Ty wasn't too sure of the place but loved this large bounce house with lots of balls.

Even Grandma got in on the fun!

Tatum, Garrett and I enjoyed the obstacle course bounce house the best. Tatum needed a little help up and over a few of the obstacles but loved it!

There are two sides to the obstacle course, mirror images, so Garrett and I decided to have a race. The first time around I won! But Garrett wanted a rematch which he won. As I was rushing over one of the humps, I pulled my shoulder out of socket. Ouch! Anyway, I claimed that's what slowed me down. :) Here we are completely exhausted!

Ty didn't enjoy many of the bounce houses but he loved the slide. He also loved running around the room screaming and laughing, it was so cute.

Oh to be a kid again! :)

On the twenty second day of Christmas...

We made stockings! The best part for Tatum was getting the cotton balls out and lining the tops of the stockings with fluffy cotton balls. She really enjoyed this project and got pretty creative. Daddy came home just as we started this project and jumped right in.

Here are the finished products. Very creative! Daddy added the 3D items, looks great!

On the twenty first day of Christmas...

Tatum and her BFF Mattie exchanged Christmas gifts. One year they'll actually help in the picking out of the gifts as well. Again, these girls just love each other so much and had a fun time playing Mattie's Kinect! Wow, Tatum loved it! We might be needing to get one of those. Even though we're a little challenged in the coordination department over here, it's a great way to have some family fun time!

On the twentieth day of Christmas...

We took some presents over to my Uncle Tom, Tatum and Ty's Great Uncle Tom. He loves that title. :) Uncle Tom has dementia and has been slowly getting progressively worse over the last 3 years. He's now spending most of his time in bed and being turned regularly. It's hard to see him this way but there isn't much to do to beat the disease. The kids love to visit him, to say hi, but also to see all the animals that live in his senior living center. And all the residents love to see the kids. :) Merry Christmas Uncle Tom!

On the ninteenth day of Christmas...

We met the Jazayeris...

The Taylors...

and us, along with my mom, for some fun at South Coast Plaza. They had beautiful Christmas displays everywhere and a place to meet Santa! We weren't up for saying hi to Santa again but checking out this train set behind us was pretty fun.

And everyone loved the train ride (well, except Isaac over there)...

even Ty! We tried Isaac with Ty but that didn't seem to ease his mind. Maybe next year. :)

My girls

The BFFs. These two are so cute together. They compliment each other perfectly and have so much fun together.

Look at this silliness! What a jolly time with friends and family.

On the eighteenth day of Christmas...

The kids stayed with a new baby sitter while we attended Garrett's work Christmas party. It was held at the Hyatt downtown, a very nice hotel. Delicious food, yummy drinks and catching up with people you only get to see once a year. :)

While we were out on the terrace taking pictures of the beautiful sky line (it's hard to see in the picture but it was really pretty), the kids were enjoying their new baby sitter. We got home and found out that Tatum convinced Sam she could have cereal for dinner and two desserts. And Ty only had 2 ounces of his 8 ounce bottle. He was up at 1:30 and hungry of course. Fun times for Mom! :( I didn't realize the baby sitter manipulating started so early!

On the seventeenth day of Christmas...

We went to a Christmas puppet show! We'd never been to a puppet show before so this was very exciting. It was at the puppet theater in Balboa Park where they put on different shows all year long. And we met up with lots of friends and their kids which made it even more fun.

Ty loved it and kept shouting in excitement and pointing every time a new puppet would come out. He also loved the large ball lights hanging from the theater ceiling, he kept yelling, "Ba! Ba!"

Here's Santa and Mrs. Claus!!

After the show, we headed with some friends to the park close by for a picnic and some fun play time. Ty loves animals and was so excited to see lots of different ones to climb on at this park. He loves the elephant so he needed to have his picture taken. :)

On the sixteenth day of Christmas...

Tatum was a star! She had her first performance at her preschool. Ty was so excited for her but he was also excited to go to the school nursery where he got to play with other little kids while his sister put on her show.

These are two of the classes at Tatum's preschool. The kids did a wonderful job, singing all sorts of songs from Good Made the Mountains High, Mighty is His Love, Joy to the World and Away in the Manger. They had hand gestures that went with each song and they all did such a great job!

Here's Tatum singing next to one of her good friends Kaitlin. They almost look alike!

And here's her class. Anderson, the little boy in the front row just below Tatum, is our neighbor and such a ham. Look at his face! :)

And Godmother Shauna came too! Tatum was so excited to see her of course, and loved that we were all there in the audience for her. And Shauna brought her amazing camera that took a few of these great pictures!

Here's most of her class with her teacher Miss. Lawson. Love the bonnet on the little girls head in the front. ??

And here's Tatum with Anderson, such good friends.

Later that evening we had our friends over for dinner and then we all went down the street to a neighborhood that goes all out with their outside Christmas lights.

Ty was so amazed and excited, he kept pointing and screaming in delight! :) Kind of how I was screaming over the thought of these people's electricity bill!

And here are all the kids. From left: Tatum, Ty, Bailey, Ellie and Julia. Julia is only 7 weeks but was bright eyed and interested in all the lights. Such a wonderful world! :)