Christmas post #2

December 25
At Home
It was well into the wee hours of Christmas morning by the time that I finished wrapping the presents and arranging them under the tree. Kacen woke up first I guess you could say (He had woke up atleast four other times between one a.m. and 8:30, which it now was). I went and peeked in the girls room and they were awake. I then got Paul's attention, he actually wasn't too hard to wake up. He went out and got the camcorder ready and I went and helped Abbi out of bed. Alona had fun guessing which stocking was hers and we just gave Abbi's to her. Abbi found the crayons! They were just laying out in front of the tree and she wanted them, "Open!" She wanted to color right then and didn't care about the stocking or other presents. We got her to take things out of her stocking, Abbi was so careful about pulling each thing out that we just dumped out the contents of her stocking right in front of her. Alona was a bit more quick about it. And the present opening began!

Alona would ask when touching each present if it was hers. And when opening the presents that the church had dropped off for her(though she thinks that it was Santa) she replied, I didn't want this! Oh child of mine! Abbi was so excited for each present and had a hard time moving on to the next one. They got more than any child could hope for. We were so blessed, with Paul's bonus check that we were not expecting we were able to get Kacen two presents! So Santa came even for the two month old baby! I was able to get Paul the laptop hard drive that he wanted and I got a book, a cd and a pedometer and one other gift!

And Alona's slippers came later. So she put on her boots that she got from Santa right when she woke up!

And Jared's present to the girls, WoW! I had heard that there was a new Elmo, but I never imagined the possibilities. The TMX Elmo knows when it has fallen up and gets up by itself. If Alona throws him down, he picks himself up! He slaps his knee and falls down with hysterical laughter and turns to all sides of his body laughing and giggling vibrations! It was mouth dropping to watch this all for the first time!
Marta's gifts that I bought with the money that she gave were a great hit! Alona wanted to open some of the musical instruments for herself. Alona got a cute piggy bank, which she was so convincde that Santa got for her, and a Toss Across game. After it got all put together, Alona now goes over to it and makes them all X's or O's and says, " look I win!" Abbi got a band in a box kind of thing with a drum, tambourine, bells on a stick, egg shakers, maracas, etc. When it was shipped they didn't treat it very nice, it got here and almost all of the instruments were floating freely in the box. They should have all been fastened to one piece of cardboard. That's why Alona wanted to open some of Abbi's, they were all wrapped separately so it looked like she had a lot of presents. Kacen got a toy bar to go on his car seat! Some day he will understand the concept!

We well we tried to hurry and get ready to go to relatives houses. But it seems that I take the longest with feeding a baby and getting myself dressed. And the van needed air in its tires. So we were a half an hour late to my grandmothers house. We were able to listen to the CD that Paul got me all the way down to Roy! Though I had to hold the portable CD Player in my hand so that it didn't skip.

Heather's Grandparent's House
And the comment right when we walked in, Look Heather's here! I guess they were all waiting on me. Lunch was great, she had about the same stuff as when Kacen was blessed. Abbi ate all of her olives and wouldn't touch the rest of her food. Alona ate her roll and not much else. My silly, silly children. My aunt Tiffany and my grandmother had bought the children presents and handed them out to the children. They waited until all of them had a gift and then they got to open them. Alona got her guitar! She looked happy, though the response that came from her mouth moments later shocked me, "I want more presents." I told her just to be thankful! Abbi got a keyboard fronm them and a singing Dora Doll and they both got bath things. Kacen got an Eeyore and some pajamas. Tiff and Mike gave us a gift card to Wal-Mart and my grandmother had previously given me and Paul $20 each and I used all of that money to put fillings in my teeth.
My aunt Taunya helped the girls and played with them. She did at the christmas party too. She is so sweet. I asked my grandfather if he was having a good christmas. He replied that it was good because I was there! Paul didn't eat anything, he still wasn't feeling good from having the stomache flu for four days!

On the Road
We were off to follow my sister to Cherry Lane to pick up presents from my old foster parents. While driving the cell phone rang and I reached back and grabbed it. I am so glad that I did. A guy on the other end just starts talking to me and then he asks, do you know who you're talking to? I was dumbfounded was I supposed to know who this was? He then says, "It's Elder Bagley!" Okay I feel retarded even after he said that it took me a minute to catch that it was Andy!! Either his voice had changed or over the past seven months the way his voice sounded just left me. Both me and Paul had great conversations with him and the girls got to say hello.

I went in and gave my foster mother a hug and told her thanks for the presents. She was all teary eyed that we were there. She was recently diagnosed with Lukemia and doesn't like kids coming in her house because of her low white blood cell count. So we went to my sister's house to open the presents. How fun both girls got a dora doll and puzzles! And Alona is getting good at them!

Val and Ruth's
We didn't spend too much time at my sister's house, we were already running late for our next stop!
First was presents at their house. Alona got "backpack" from Dora, socks and a gift certificate. Abbi got a Winnie the pooh water baby, socks and a gift certificate. Kacen got clothes and socks and for all of us was a snowman cookie jar and napkin holder. Paul got a gift certificate to Best Buy, which he has used quite well already. MI3, some headphones and a card reader for the computer. I got a gift certificate to Wal-Mart to develop my pictures!!! It is spent! Grant and Dee came over and gave us popcorn and two gift certificates to Wal-Mart and gave the girls little baby dolls and Kacen a homemade blanket.

Val got a nerf basketball hoop for him and the girls and they had fun playing with that and all of the games that came in "Backpack". She has dominoes, checkers, a lot of different card games and many more games in there. We were able to make homemade pizza and Alona was so funny, she put pineapple on her pizza. Then after it was cooked and she was eating it her little comment of, I don't like this on there came. She was the one that put it on there!They had fun playing hide and seek with the girls!

Paul let me spend all of our Wal-mart gift cards! Which was a lot, I am so grateful and delighted. I was able to get quite a few things that I needed and a good portion of pictures developed!

All said and done we had an awesome Christmas!