Christmas 2014

We all had another great Christmas this year!  It started on Christmas Eve at my parents' house as usual.  We exchanged gifts with Grandma and Grandpa first.  I only took one picture.  We gave Grandpa some pillows made from his old ties (which he had cut in half at his retirement party in 2008 and I had secretly saved).

Then my mom's family came over to celebrate.

Then Santa came to our house.  The boys loved their gifts, especially their new Leap Pad 2s, which Santa should have strategically placed at the bottom of the pile so they wouldn't be distracted from their remaining gifts.  Santa will learn...

I'll spare you the full long video of opening Santa's gifts, but here is a little glimpse of our morning...

After we finished with our Santa gifts, we headed over to Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Todd's house to exchange gifts and have breakfast with them.

We surprised the kids with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City.  We left on New Year's Day, so more on the trip in a future post, but the "surprise" is worth discussing.  Cyndi and I debated the best way to tell the kids and came up with these little laminated puzzle pieces.

Let's just say it was not as successful as we were hoping.  See video:

We did a quick visit with the Lang side of the family at my Aunt Jean's house (no pictures, bummer) and then ended the night back with the Claytons at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We had another busy, but very nice holiday!!