The Best Christmas Ever!

I know it's a little past Christmas, but I still wanted to blog about what a wonderful Christmas we had. Our first family Christmas celebration was December 20th and we finished our last one on January 1st. That is 12 days of family get togethers and holiday fun.

The Smiley Christmas was so much fun this year with both of our boys really getting into (literally) the presents. Marshall wanted to open anything in sight that had wrapping paper on it. Damon opened his first present, a Little Einsten rocket, and then didn't want to open anything else. We finally convinced him that there was more fun and toys to be had. Kiley received a DS and she and her two cousins Alivia and Corban spent most of the day chatting back and forth and playing video games.

Christmas day was pretty quiet with just Eric, me and the boys. BTW, this was the first Christmas morning that we have ever woken up in our own home and the first Christmas morning that I have not woken up in my parent's house. But we decided this was the year to start making our own traditions. We went to church Christmas Eve and read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" before going to bed. Christmas morning we took the first annual picture coming down our stairs. After presents, Eric's parents came over for breakfast and to see the boys gifts. Our new Christmas dinner tradition was making homemade pizzas. Damon had so much fun topping his pizza. And Papa John's has nothing on the Smileys' spicy barbecue chicken pizza!

The Fisher family celebration began on December 30th with my entire family arriving at our house, Mom and Dad, Todd, Sherry and Chaz from Nashville, TN, and Adam and Melody from Eugene, OR. This marked the first time that we had all been together with spouses, stepchildren and the newest little ones. We had a blast from staying up playing cards until 2:30am, to the big birthday bash at Red Robin and a visit by President Nixon (the only way I can explain this one is "Todd Family Tradition.")

I had 11 days off and Eric had about 9 days off, so it was great to just spend tons of time with the kids.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a few pictures to show how much fun we had!