Christmas!

This Christmas, we hosted Grandma and Grandpa Johnston (aka Big Grandma and Big Grandpa, although the size has only to do with Grandpa... Big Grandma is actually shorter than Little Grandma).

This kid has many faces, mostly kinda grumpy... I assure you, he did love his new scooter.

Every little girl wants a pony, right?

This was the first Christmas where Brandon actually cared about what was going on, and he caught on to the idea of opening gifts real quickly.

Now Russ is going to have to start wearing flip flops... courtesy of his brother in California (they look like Cali shoes, don't they?).

Like our mess? It took five days to climb out from under it.

Paige and her cool new bicycle.

Once she opened the iPod touch she's been asking for FOREVER, we never heard from her again (well, almost never).

Another of Brandon's faces, his mouth stained with candy cane. "There's gotta be more candy in here!" Once he emptied all the candy out, he carefully sorted it into piles... is he gonna be ocd?

Kallie taking her new dog, Sparkles, for a walk. She's not allergic to this one.

Kallie got a dino bones excavation kit, and these are her safety goggles.

Big Grandpa ended up doing most of the work.

The next day, we had Will & Kyle come over to open their presents. This is William's face when he told the joke that never gets old around our house... "I got a box!"

These bugs that Paige got for Will were on my ceiling for the rest of the day.

Kyle loves this shirt that says, "I don't know karate, but I know crazy!" When we did the neon splash dash, we got bracelets that came in packages that said, "Don't too crazy!" on them, and that has been a family joke ever since.

Will checking out the spoils.

More Pokemon cards for Kyle... "have that one, have that one, have that one, have that one, have that one... don't have that one!" Good thing there were a few in that giant pack that he didn't already have.

Do you love this face like I do? Kyle has this uncanny way of getting into the background of my shots when I don't want him there.

Brandon got cowboy boots for Christmas, and Kallie managed to squeeze her feet into them somehow. She looks cute on her new rocking horse, Sparkle (as opposed to Sparkles, the dog).

I like how color coordinated Paige is on her new bicycle.

Brandon has been riding Paige's old Dora scooter, so there was no learning curve for him... except maybe the direction of the handlebars. Do I spy a smile?

Brandon loves Kallie's rocking horse, too.

I was just a little bit jealous when Santa brought Paige a pizza making shop. You can make your crust, grate your cheese...

Make a dozen different toppings...

(Looking delicious)

And cut it up with a pizza cutter! Russ actually took a bite... he should've heeded the warning on the box... "Fun to play, but not to eat!"

Paige got new rollerblades for Christmas, and I thought she did pretty well on them for her first try! Good thing she had the pads, though... now if only she had a butt pad...

Sorry to say, there were no pictures taken of me. Since I got the new camera, Russ has only taken one photo of me, and that was just so he could try it out. I'm going to have to work on that because I'm tired of only being a narrator in our family story!