Christmas Time!

Now that Christmas is over and all the decorations are put away, I guess I could take a minute to write about the rest of our Christmas.

On Monday night before Christmas, Jason and I (more Jason than I :-) decided we should give the boys their present from us so that they would have some time to play with it before we left town for the holidays. Let me explain my parenthetical comment: I'm just a traditional person and like to save gifts until it's time. But I agreed that they would want to have time to play, so I gave in.

All THREE of my boys have been begging for a Wii for some time now. So, that's what they got. I mean, that's what we got. Here they are enjoying Toy Story Mania!

Now, I'm not a "gamer" -- never have been, but since this is my blog and I can write what I want, I just have to say that I am the reigning champion of Toy Story Mania in the West household! That, of course, is probably ALL I will ever be the reigning champion of, and thought I better say it before the boys get good at it and beat me. :-)

As for the rest of the Christmas holiday, we spent it in Abilene with my family. Well, most of my family. The weather kept my sister, brother-in-law and nephew from getting to be there with us. But, there was Mom, Dad and Granny...

...Joey and Leslye...

...and Jaden, me, Jason and Jaxon.

We have a long-standing tradition that before we can open our presents on Christmas Eve, we go around the room and everyone has to pick a Christmas song for the group to sing. It's one that the grandkids (that would be me, my sister and brother) always dreaded because it just prolonged the opening of the gifts. But now I, at least, enjoy it because it is a tradition, although the great-grandkids (that would be Cody, Jaden and Jaxon) now dread it for the same reasons we did as kids.

After singing, we got to the opening of the gifts. I didn't take that many pictures (which you are probably glad after the picture-ful blog entry this has become) of the presents but I did take this one because the boys couldn't figure out what in the world was in these sacks.

It was Wiggly Racers! It was too cold and snowy to try them outside, so they tried them in Granny's kitchen. Fun! Fun!

After we opened presents, Jaden couldn't wait any longer to go out and play in the snow. I had been telling him since we got up that morning that we would go. So, we did. And he and I are the only ones that braved the cold...

We had great snowball fight and each made snow angels and just had lots of fun playing in that white stuff we don't usually see around here so much.

After supper, there was a mean game of dominoes going on.
We headed back to Snyder after lunch on Christmas Day to see what Santa brought us, which I guess I didn't take any pictures of. That's weird! Oh, well. He brought Jaxon a fire station Lego set and Jaden some soccer guys (yes, to go with our West Sports Complex blogged about earlier this -- I mean last year).

What fun we've had playing with the Legos and the Wii since Christmas. We are not really looking forward to getting back into a routine this week.

After the snow and ice melted and my sister could get to Abilene, Jaden, Jaxon and I headed back there to have Christmas with everyone again. Unfortunately, Jeff (my brother-in-law) and Jason couldn't make it because, well, somebody has to stay home and work so we can pay the bills, right?

Here are Cody and Tami about to open more presents...

It was kind of fun having two Christmases with everyone. Hope you all had a great holiday as well!