Fort Collins Mama: Christmas Morning Recap

Well, it was another magical Christmas Morning! This video here is just a short snippet of the morning. Ezrah opens his awesome custom Plan B skateboard. Plan B is the "cool" one. This present we made from me and Big Daddy because he was catching on from the preparation of that present. Madi wanted a real live bunny so much, but Santa brought her a "Fur Real" bunny that is a soft newborn bunny that sniffs and wiggles when you pet it. Being it's a newborn bunny, it came with a "ba ba", the term for bottle coined by my younger brother when he was a baby.

So Christmas Eve was wonderful. For apps we had stuffed shrooms and fresh mozz, basil and tomato brushetta. Uncle Dave came with his GF for apps and brought the shrimp cocktail. He made the cocktail sauce himself and went heavy on the horseradish. Yes!
The Safeway was all out of lobster tails, except for these wild brazilian lobster tails that we $45 a tail. So, needless to say, we omitted lobster tail from the menu. But it wasn't missed as we got King Crab (Jack's fave) and it was delightful! I also did my shrimp scampi over linguini which I nailed! I sauted the shrimp in butter, olive oil and garlic, added some bread crumbs and asasio cheese, then fresh lemon juice. Poured over the linguini and wala! Delish!

Actually now that I'm looking at our photos, I'm totally out of order. Before Christmas eve dinner, we went to our church's candlelight ceremony. At first we were towards the front pew, but Indigo was not sitting still and climbing up on the stage and getting into the instruments. Finally we moved to the back -where we belong with all these crazy kids. Ezrah was happy to lay down across the pews, Jack was able to constantly complain about his hunger, Madi was able to dance in the isle, and Indigo was free to be crazy. Except we didn't get away unnoticed as pastor Bert was walking up from the back of the isle for part of the ceremony, he tripped over Indigo who was exploring. That's right, my baby tripped the Pastor! He didn't fall or anything, but was definately like "whoa". Anyway, here's some pics before we left...

And on the way to church...

I was too busy with dinner to take many pictures, but after dinner, the kids got to open their Christmas PJs and open the gifts they gave to eachother.

Jackie got a robe instead of PJs this year. He's been wearing it all day today!

Here's Princess opening her present from Ezrah...

Here's Indigo opening her gift from Ezrah...

Just look at those teeth!

Here's the girls all ready for sleep. The one night of the year Princess actually goes to bed willingly! I asked her if she wanted to sleep in her own room tonight so Santa sees she's a big girl. "Nope -with mama!"

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!

Santa Really Came! I woke up before the kids got up to get a photo! Isn't our tree beautiful by the way?

It was total madness. Oh just look at the joy on Big Boy's face! It makes going way over the budget all worth it! Hey at least we made a budget this year.

Before Princess woke us up, she took off her PJs and got back into her fancy dress to open presents. That's why we call her Princess!

Here's indigo playing with the glittery ribbon more than the actual present!

So cliche!

Here's Ezrah with his new skateboard! See the video above! Notice the house getting messier and messier...

Okay, now Indy's playing with it! She's so freakin' cute!!!!

Here's a photo of just the pure madness of Christmas morning with 4 kids...

Santa didn't forget Breezy!

Just another picture of Pure JOY!

Here's Jack predicting each present before he opens it! "I KNOW this is the Beyblades I wanted"

Madi loving her new Innotab! Looking forward to taking this one on the plane to Disney World. Which by the way, at this point they did not know about yet. That was opened later in the day...

Ezrah gets his Pogo stick!

Dan loves his "Indigo Army" tee shirt I got him. Indigo Army is the name of one of his fantasy teams.

AHHHH. THE AFTERMATH....LOOKS LIKE A WAR ZONE

It is 2 days later and I am STILL trying to get this house back together!

So this was our magical Christmas morning! We spent Christmas day at Big Daddy's parent's house and that was where we unveiled the trip to Disney World with a less than enthusiastic reaction from the kids. Jack, in his monotone voice was like, "oh cool, Mickey Mouse dolls."

Those intangible presents don't go over too well at first I guess. However, Madi is the most excited about the trip and she was wondering how many dresses she needs to pack. She's extremely worried that she doesn't own a Cinderella dress. Grateful child; she only has 5 Disney princess dresses in her wardrobe. What a tragedy! (sarcasm) I'll get that video up soon.

We opened lots of presents from Grandma and Grandpa...

Socks

More socks

Ezrah got an AMAZING remote control helicopter from Uncle Dave

And my sweet niece loved her Moxie Girl I got her. It was so cute! It had her exact shade of red hair and little freckles just like her!

Jackie loved his Nerf Gun from Uncle Dave.

And Indy just had a grand time wreaking havoc on the beautiful breakable things at Grandma's house!

December 26: the most depressing day ever. It's all over. The house is a disaster. There are fancy hand-wash only plates in the sink still waiting for me, ripped wrapping papaer all over the floor, enormous amounts of packaging everywhere, more chokables on the floor than Indigo can put in her mouth and extremely tired Mama with an extra 5lbs on her.

Big Daddy almost took an overtime shift, but decided against it. Because you know what? Some things are more important than money. I was not ready to get back to the grind. i needed a recovery day. He did too.

My sweet Big Daddy told me to forget the house and take a nap. Then he took us all to Red Robin for dinner. He's my knight in shining armor and always knows when I need rescuing. Indigo was being especially crazy at the restaurant and managed to get a hold of my straw and spoon from my chocolate milkshake. (well I gave it to her because she was screaming for it) Yeah, I needed a chocolate milkshake tonight. No more wine, no more egg nog; just a chocolate milkshake.

Then she found the cold metal cup and went to town. What do I care? Christmas is over. I have nothing left in me to even begin to stop it. I did come prepared with another outfit for her.