Christmas

Christmas morning we agreed to all get up at 8:00 am (after going to bed at 1:00 am) and do Santa presents with the kids. Here's our boys' stash on the couch. The only thing I didn't like about the trip was having to figure out what to do for a present for the beach house. Something that didn't have a hundred pieces and would get lost and something that was small enough to pack etc. But in the end my worries were really just unfounded because everything worked out great.

Matthew opening his present from Santa with his grandma.

Our little family with the boys' presents from Santa on Christmas morning.

After presents the girls were in charge of making Christmas breakfast. We made crepes with lots of different fillings and they were delicious. I was in charge of making the crepes and I think I made about 150 of them. That's me over in the corner slaving away.

This is Matthew eating Cheerios for his Christmas breakfast.

After breakfast we spent the rest of the day on the beach in front of the house. This was the first and only day that the tide receeded enough to give us a beach. Every other day the tide was extremely high and the ocean was rough. One night this loud thud woke me up and I thought Jacob had fallen out of bed and ran to check on him. He was just fine and that's when I realized that it was the ocean waves hitting the sea wall. They were hitting so hard the house would shake. But on Christmas we had a little beach and just little calm waves. It was great. This is David with his only sister, Malena. Isn't she beautiful? Oh and David's handsome, too!

This is Jacob playing with Malena's dog, Max. But Jacob calls him Maxcido like the other kids. He's a hairless dog and the boys were fascinated by him.

A few brave souls took the kayaks out into the ocean. The water was freezing but they seemed to have a good time. David was loving it and trying to convince me to go out on the kayak with him but I didn't want to get in the cold water. So he went out with one of the boys and a wave knocked them over and he lost his sunglasses. Bummer! Azu and I stayed nice and dry on the sea wall steps.

After the cold ocean, I put Matthew down for a nap and spent an hour in the hot tub with the other adults just chatting away. It was a great relaxing Christmas day with wonderful company. And I didn't miss the snowy white Christmas that was happening back in Utah one bit.