Merry Christmas!!!

We had an amazing Christmas season.  It was so busy.  I wanted to make some tasty treat for every single event we went to (and there were a lot).  Next year I am resolving to either start earlier making the treats, or just buy stuff for some of the events.  I made sugar cookies, caramels, pigs in a blanket, roasted nuts, peppermint bark popcorn  (from ourbestbites.com) and more caramels and more caramels.  (Again, thanks to ourbestbites I made my favorite caramels that Emily Weeks told me about last year--Apple Cider Caramels.)  I LOVE making all of it.  But then I don't have time to make meals or do anything else, so a change is in order for next year.  I should spend more money on store bought goodies to give away and less on McDonald's chicken nuggets for my kids.

Anyway, the best part of Christmas this year was that my brother Dave came to stay with us.  He is a great guest.  He played with the kids, took pics of them, played games with us, I JUST LOVE HIM.  I am feeling sad already that he is gone.

I was feeling overwhelmed about the task of blogging about all the Christmas festivities.  Here is a short rundown.  We had the amazing annual Christmas Eve at Maren's.  Delicious clam chowder & chewy rolls with donuts for dessert.  (This also means that in the morning we had a great trip to Krispy Kreme where I ate an undisclosed but very large number of donuts:)  Grandpa Brion read the Christmas nativity and we sang some songs at appropriate points.  My kids danced somewhat irreverently to each song.  (I did wonder--should I stop them?  But they were having a great time.)
Then after visions of sugarplums danced in my kids heads Sarah finally woke up.  Dave and I were already up in the kitchen waiting.  I have turned into my mom.  I can't sleep on Christmas Eve.  So when Sarah got up we woke up everyone else and had a great Christmas morning.  We had a google+ chat with Emily & Soren in Maine, Rachel & Brad in Orlando, Nick at his house, my parents and Bryn and Brian at their house.
But the best part of the morning was that the girls LOVED their big gift, which will get its own blog post.

We had a great brunch at the Nortons exchanging gifts with the Norton/Rathburn clan.  The highlight of that exchange was when Clark opened his gift.  We had Paige hand him the wrapped nerf gun while we all hid outside the front door with our new guns (including Libby and Sarah).  When he started unwrapping we charged in and unloaded all our ammo on him.  A great nerf battle ensued.  Epic.
I made a collage of each kid and of the parents enjoying some Christmas Magic!  (These include some fun events in December before and after.)