I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  We had a great time with my sister's family and my parents here at our house.  When our oldest was our only we decided to try to minimize the focus on gifts at Christmas we'd always stick to a 3-gift rule...patterned after the wisemen...well, when you add generous relatives (not mentioning any names...cough...Uncle...cough...Dale), handmade gifts from each child to each sibling...and the fact that we have 5 kids...the stacks around the tree still looked, and were, pretty big...

We torture our kids and make them wait until after a big breakfast and cleanup before we open anything...I'm amazed by parents who can get up before dawn with their excited kids...I just don't have it in me...

So, here are some pix from our day...

I believe I've mentioned on this blog before that David, Sr. is a rabid ND fan...and as they had a less than stellar season with a whopping 3 wins...he got these shirts for a steal from the ND gift shop online...our oldest (David) is NOT an Irish fan at this point in his life (right now he just likes whoever is best...not ND)...he likes the shirt color, but only wears it underneath another t-shirt...he said to me yesterday as we were getting ready to go to the store..."I want to wear this shirt, but I don't want anyone to say..."Your team was terrible this year!""...Oh, the shame...I tried to convince him that you can just say "Wait 'til next year!"...he was less than convinced.

The kids made gifts for eachother and more this year...the gift that we did ALOT of were these no-sew fleece pillows .  They were so easy and fun for the kids...I think we made 13 of them...and everyone seems to enjoy them except for Sammy who posed for the above picture and hasn't allowed his pillow near him since...we put it in his bed...he chucks it out...we put it in...etc...

David with his camo pillow from Joshy and Joshy with his lion pillow from Julia. (Julia got a heart shaped pillow from David).

Baby Caleb got a mini-lion pillow.

My Uncle Dale couldn't join us b/c he was busy singing for guests down at Disney World with his church, but he sent his love...and LOTS of stuff for the kids...they LOVED it!  Julia got a baby doll that wets her diaper...that baby went through the whole pack of diapers in an hour...amazing!  Julia proved to be a very patient momma .

Here's the #1 ND fan!!

I love this picture of Nana and Julia...so sweet!

The most exciting gift of them all...

Julia and Susanna each got a kitten (raised for 4 months by our friends that have 4 boys and 1 girl...so they are used to being "loved"). 

Initially Susie wouldn't hold the kitties (so Joshua posed for us)...now she won't leave them alone...and they are oh, so tolerant!

Julia couldn't be happier with her kitty...

This kitty's name is "Franklin"...Franklin is a girl...to avoid any confusion caused by the name, Julia just keeps Franky in a dress...it's quite a site to see a cat in a dress strutting through the yard among the chickens and dogs .

 It was quite a sacrifice for Daddy to agree to kitties...we're just not kitty people...at least after we had the cat from Hades for a couple of years before the kids were born...but that's a whole 'nother post...Anyway...no kitties are allowed in the main section of our home...so the night after Christmas, the kids slept in the bonus room with the kitties...  Julia came in crying at about 3am saying the kitty was biting her feet...apparently the cats think moving objects under blankets are all an invitation to play...even at 3 am.

Lastly, pictures of the kids doing one of their new favorite activities...shooting rockets!...

Susie and Sammy had other things to do...

We didn't take any New Year's pictures...we haven't even mentioned the tradition of staying up late to our kids...good thing 'cuz we were asleep well before midnight ourselves...Bessie doesn't care what day it is...milkin' time is milkin' time...