CHRISTMAS 2011

Christmas Eve morning Kolton woke up at like 7:00 and came in our room.  I told him to hop in to bed with us and he "slept" for another hour or so before I just decided to get up with him, since it was Christmas Eve! :) We got up and headed to the donut shop to buy some donuts! Brady always is the one to take Kolton out for donuts so we thought we'd surprise him. Kolton was super excited to walk through the door and show daddy what we got. 

 

I even let him get a special Rudolph one they had for Christmas.  He thought that was pretty cool! ;) 

 

Christmas Eve we got to do some relaxing and spending time with each other.  Brady was not feeling well (he was at the start of a head cold) and so he just felt like lounging around all day.  We did make one trip to the Mexican food store.  It is off of 89th and Western I believe.  Someone at Brady's work had told Brady about it and he wanted to try it out.  Anyway, we were supposed to bring a 7 layer dip to dinner on Christmas so we went there to get some things.  It was pretty cool! Everyone there spoke spanish and I totally felt out of place.  Haha.  

While Kolton was napping I decided to decorate the kitchen for our dinner.  I kept going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to spend the time or not.  I decided to take the 30 minutes it would take to throw something super simple together just because I knew he'd think it was really cool.  I'm so glad I did.  Brady brought him in to the kitchen after his nap and he was so excited when he saw it all! It made it worth it.  

I decided it was important for us to have baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph at the center of our table.  I liked having it there.  

 We had the usual ham dinner with roll and mashed potatoes and our sparkling grape juice that Kolton loves to drink in the "special" glasses! I made place cards and left a kiss on everyone's plate.  I put lights and some red bells around the table and windows and had some candles to "set the mood" (haha), and then hung snow flakes and a paper chain from the ceiling.  

 After dinner we got to open one present each.  Kolton has not gotten old enough to realize that the one present he gets to open on Christmas Eve is always pajamas so he had no idea what to expect. 

 When he opened them he thought it was pretty cool that they were OU pajamas but you could tell there was a little bit of disappointment that it was pajamas and not some cool toy.  Being the sweet boy he is, who always wants to make us happy, he tried not to show it.  He's so sweet!

 Once Brady and I opened our gifts, though, he was completely happy with the fact that he had received pajamas.  :)

 Kolton wanted to take the pictures of Brady opening his pajamas...this is his picture. 

 Kolton needed to test out his pajama pants to see if they made him run faster.  ;)

 

Then he and I did tricks with ours.  :) He's getting pretty good at hopping on one foot.  (Every time he does it I can't help but remember when my brother Tyler was a sunbeam and our primary was doing a talent show and he wanted to do a talent so he hopped around on one foot on the stage for an entire primary song.  Haha. Makes me laugh!)

 After our jammies we watched The Animated Nativity from the Living Scriptures.  It was great to watch and be reminded why we celebrate Christmas.  Kolton really enjoyed it.  

After that Kolton was off to write Santa a letter and leave him a donut and the reindeer the "reindeer food" we made them a couple days before. 

 He did a great job explaining what it was all for!

He was in bed at about 9:00 and Brady and I headed to bed at about 11:00 (after I ran to CVS to get some batteries I forgot we needed).

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Christmas morning came SUPER early! SUPER! Kolton came in to our room at 2:45 and said to Brady "Daddy, I can't sleep very well! I'm too excited." So, Brady asked him "Did you see if Santa had come yet?" Kolton told him "Mom said I can't go see until the sun comes up." Brady replied with "Let's go!" So we headed out to the living room at 3 in the morning to see if Santa had come--which he had! Kolton was SOO excited! One of the things Santa brought was a Cars 2 slot car race track.  Kolton is obsessed with race tracks and absolutely loves the one at Bass Pro and loves to play with it every time we go see Santa so he was pretty ecstatic to have one of his very own! 

Brady and Kolton played this for a while racing Lightning McQueen and Francesco (who always wins). It was definitely a hit! 

 

 Some of the other things he got were a Cars 2 mobigo game from Grandma and Grandpa Moffett, a talking Lightning McQueen and Francesco from Grandma and Grandpa Moffett (which he was super excited for!), a tool box from Lizzie, tools and a monster truck from us, motorcycle, trains, train track with Dash (a train with LINES!), and some coloring books and candy from Santa.  He was pretty happy with the things he got!

 Check him out! I love watching him play with his tools! It cracks me up! He wears the goggles and tool belt every time and carries around all the tools in his tool box.  Its cute.

 I got Brady a coat (which he took back-haha) and he got me a steam mop (which I love!)! He also got a work shirt and new basketball shoes from my parents (which he's already used and loves!) and a Chilis gift card from Derek (which we've already used and loved! haha) and I got a new colander from Tyler (which I've used and love that it is flat and doesn't take up any room in my kitchen) and money for camera actions and accessories and a curling wand from my parents (which I am horrible at using :) and will need my sister to show me how to work it). We were done opening presents at about 4:00 and decided to head back to bed.  ;) Kolton took forever to fall back asleep because he was too excited, but finally crashed about 5:30.  We got up at about 7:30 to play some more and then get ready for 11:00 church.  We also got to skype with my family and that was fun! Kolton liked showing them everything he got.  :) 
Here's a picture of the whole Brammer family (except for Dylen) on Christmas.
 

We also got to skype with Shawn that afternoon for about 20 minutes.  It was so cool to see him and talk to him! Only 2 more months until he comes home! So exciting! I wish I would have thought to take a picture but I didn't...

We went over to the Brammers that afternoon.  Kolton immediately laid claim on Grandpa's new foot massager he got for Christmas and monopolized it while we were there.  :)

 We also went on a walk and let Kolton ride his bike.  It ended up being pretty cold and we headed back inside only after a few minutes. 

 We ate dinner at 5:00 (mexican food) and then opened presents.  The boys went first and I had them open oldest to youngest (figured it would give Kolton a chance to practice patience :)). 

 London got a Star Wars lego set, Kolton got a "water front" themed lego set and Pierson got Star Wars action figures.  Brady and I got a shelf reliance shelving system from his parents and he got some shoes from his parents and a movie from Madison.  I got a scarf and shirt from his parents and another shirt from Jaycee.  Now I just need to get my food storage on!

 Kolton was actually pretty good at setting it up.  I had to sit with him and tell him to "grab a small red one" and then show him on the picture where it would go and then he'd put it in the right spot.  We've only assembled bag 1 of 4 but he had fun doing it. 

We had a wonderful Christmas and are very grateful for all we have.  Kolton was very appreciative of all his gifts and loves each one of them (well...except for the monster truck...I don't think its been played with since Christmas haha).  We love our little family and both of our families as well.  We are very blessed!
We got to talk to Dylen the next day.  We didn't think we were going to be able to talk to him because he was calling in the middle of the day and Brady had to work, but someone switched lunches with him so we came over during his lunch time so we could get a chance to talk to him.  It didn't work very well, and so his picture kept going in and out but we could hear him and he could hear and see us.