Christmas afternoon with the family

By around 12pm on Christmas day, the rest of Anthony's family started arriving to celebrate Christmas with us. Anthony's sister Robin and her family came, along with Anthony's parents and his Aunt Eileen. When you factor in my mom, my brother, a very loud James, Rett, our two dogs, and a pug that we are dog sitting, the noise level was never below a dull roar in the house :)

After everyone got something to eat, we all sat down around the Christmas tree for presents! First my mom got 1$ scratch off tickets for everyone. I think we had three winners out of the 12 tickets! My mom gave James one of his own and he promptly lost it. Now it is hiding somewhere in our house and I secretly wonder if it was the big winner :)

 James got ahold of my phone because he loves to take pictures. This is one he took of Aunt Eileen:

Robin took a picture of James taking a picture:

Very interested in Grandpa's big camera:

Anthony definitely got some fun presents this year! It is a tradition that he get a fun t-shirt that says something funny, like "I'm awesome", or "It's funny you think I'm listening". This year he got two t-shirts, and after he opened the one from Robin, his mom started insisting that she originally bought him that shirt and this it was her idea to get it for him. They kept arguing back and forth and it was so funny!! Everyone else was laughing at what they were saying, but I was laughing that they were arguing so much about who wanted to give Anthony presents more. Seriously, everybody just loves Anthony!! :)

 

Anthony's sister also gave him a Walmart gift card... with a catch. There were 10 gift cards in the envelope and she told us only one has money on it. So now Anthony gets to take 10 gift cards into Walmart and try each one until he finds the one with money :) She said that she would have given the gift to me, but after she imagined me doing that with two kids by myself she realized that it wouldn't be funny at that point. She is probably right!

We also did our funny/original/ugly Christmas t-shirt contest again this year. I ordered great ones online three weeks before Christmas and they didn't arrive until the day after Christmas. Bummer. So I got a generic Christmas t-shirt from goodwill and Anthony wore his from last year. James took a picture of me modeling my shirt:

This one was a little bit later after I had to change Rett's outfit. If he doesn't wear a bib, his shirt gets soaked in drool and we have to change it so he doesn't get a rash.

 The winner definitely went to Nevada for the effort she put into making and sewing hers! It had a Christmas tree on the front, with a string of bells sewn along the shoulders. Robin was her model and we got a picture of it, but the angle was weird and it was not a flattering picture of Robin, so I deleted it. You're welcome Robin! :)

So the prize of the Weird Christmas Gun-slinging Gnome with his Pot of Gold chocolates went to Nevada this year. She definitely seemed to enjoy her chocolate!

I wanted to give our niece and nephew cash for Christmas, since I didn't want to get them something they didn't like or already had, so I decided to give it to them in a fun way. I saw an idea on Pinterest about filling a box with balloons with money inside, then they have to pop the balloons to get the money. That sounded like fun, so I made a box for each of them. After everyone opened their presents, they took theirs out onto the porch to get to popping.

 

Dallas wanted to pop his balloons, but didn't like the loud noise they made, so he was popping with one hand and covering his ear with the other :)



 Nevada was so fast, by the time I got over to her to take pictures she was all done!

 A happy girl holding her cash:

We had so much fun having everyone over and we spent so much time talking, laughing, and visiting. I can't wait to do it again soon!