Even though I have been plunged into chaos from the moment Christmas ended, I had to find time to post about it all before we go out of town tomorrow.  Yesterday I spent the day packing up Christmas, doing laundry, and cleaning the house top to bottom, and today, after church, I will be packing like a mad woman, so I thought I had better take advantage of a few quiet moments this morning.

As you can see from my previous posts, I had really been trying to find ways to celebrate Christmas all month long.  This past week, because of Derek's birthday, we didn't do too much extra celebrating until Christmas Eve. 

We did have a gingerbread house eating party one afternoon.  This consisted of me putting a gingerbread house in front of each of the kids, and letting them eat whatever they wanted off of them until they were full :).  Our home teacher had brought us one the night before, and so we even had one for each kid.  They loved it, and managed to get every bit of chocolate off of them.

Christmas Eve was a great day.  We were pretty lazy the whole day, only venturing out of the house once to drop off movies at Blockbuster and find me a Fayetteville Christmas ornament.  (We get an ornament from every place we have been stationed with the Army.)

The rest of the day the kids played video games with their dad and secretly wrapped their presents for me, until it was time for dinner.  Even though it was just us, I still made a ham and scalloped potatoes, but kept it simple and didn't have a lot of extra things.  We did have sparkling grape juice, which both Lily and Derek decided they loved.  It was all very yummy :).

Then Kevin broke out his ukulele, and we all sang Christmas songs while he played for us.  When he ran out of songs on the ukulele, he moved to the piano, and we sang some more.  It was a blast, and probably one of my favorite parts of all Christmas.

Then we got the kids ready for bed and watched "Joy to the World" – such a wonderful movie the church has put out about the birth of Christ.  All too soon it was time to put them to bed, and so we read a few Christmas books and tucked  them in.  Then it was time for Kevin and I to get busy.

Before we got the gifts out and the stockings hung, we decided to take a break and watch "Elf" – which was a good choice, since it took a bit for Lily and Derek to actually fall asleep :).  Soon we were arranging the presents, and had the stockings filled and ready.  It was perfectly magical looking.

Christmas morning, both Derek and Lily gave us the best gift of sleeping in until almost 7 am.  Then I left them upstairs with Kevin while I got breakfast in the oven and the video camera set up.  Once I gave the go ahead, they headed downstairs and I got to see the most excited kids ever!  Definitely made it worth all the effort :).  They were even super excited for their fancy band-aides and toothpaste in their stockings.  Soon, the stockings were empty and they were building their Christmas Legos with Kevin while I finished breakfast. 

After breakfast, we quickly got dressed, and then we opened presents.  They loved everything, but were so happy about their big presents.  Lily got a set of golf clubs, complete with a glove and visor to wear.  Derek got a basketball hoop and worked on his shooting skills all morning, that is, when he wasn't playing with his Legos :).

Kevin got a Bert head-cover for his golf clubs, two new Guitar Hero games, and "The Muppets Take Manhattan" :).  I got a few of my favorite old musicals on DVD, as well as new shoes and a soup pot – of which Derek informed me he got me before I opened the present – he he!  We spent the rest of the day enjoying our new toys and spending time with each other.  It was a great Christmas for everyone.  Lily even went so far as to tell me that her wish came true, and it was the "best Christmas ever."

And it's not over yet, tomorrow we get to take advantage of a Christmas gift from Kevin's parents and are flying to Idaho to visit family.  We can't wait.  Stay tuned next week for our Idaho adventures . . .

PS.  And yes, even though there wasn't a single photo of me the whole two days, I promise I was there :).