Thanksgiving 2013

We had the family over to our house for Thanksgiving.  Abby helped me with all of the cooking.  She is such a cutie and such a great helper :)  After we prepared the feast, the family came over and we ate yummy food and then relaxed and watched some good ol' Thanksgiving Day Football :)

Happy Birthday/Thanksgiving dessert to Austin!

Christmas 2012!

We had our first Christmas in our new home.  Nana and Grandma Marci (my Mom) stayed the night with us on Christmas Eve.  The kids didn't wake up to terribly early, which was nice since we were up late.  They were really excited to see what Santa had left for them and if they had been good.  "Og" our Elf was a big excitement for the kiddos this year.  This was the first year that they really understood the concept.  Every morning Sebastian would come running downstairs and start looking for Og right away and get so excited when he found him.  He and Abby would tell each other all month that Santa and Og were watching and they were going to be put on the naughty list if they weren't nice.  On Christmas Eve we had them tell Og goodbye and that they would see him next year.  We wanted to make sure that Sebastian wouldn't be heart broken Christmas morning when he couldn't find him.  It all worked out well and they realized they must have been good because they were filled with joy when they saw all of the gifts.  Santa left Gabe and Sebastian each a bicycle, he left Abby a power wheels car, and Austin got Chicago Bears bedding.  After looking at what Santa had left for them it was time to move on to family gifts.  It started out slow and organized and before we knew it it was complete chaos!  I don't even remember seeing them open up half of their presents.  It was crazy, they were zipping thru presents all at the same time while we were being left in the dust trying to get the toys out of packages.  We need to come up with a better system for sure!!!

Austin's favorite present......iPhone 5!!!

and Bam the unwrapping is done!

Austin set all of his stuff up on his bed for display.  He has done this since he was a little kid.  Unfortunately I didn't get to set up the little kids stuff, they were to quick to play with all of their toys bouncing back and fourth between all of them.

Winding down time while I prepare our yummy Christmas dinner.  I made my 2nd turkey dinner and it turned out fabulous!  Getting hungry just thinking about it.  

My Honey and me!

Christmas Eve at our house!

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve!  Everyone came over to our house for dinner and our traditional White Elephant Gift Exchange.  What a hoot!  We had 22 people participate in the exchange and had some great laughs!

We found these cups and thought they would be great!  They were a hit!  Scott loved them and planned to use them at a company party.  :)

Of course we had to use the picture of Vinnie again in some way and this is what we came up with.  Last year Mia opened the framed picture and wasn't to pleased.  Noah traded her and was very excited about his gift and displayed it on his desk at home.  This year she opened the present that had this T-shirt in it with the same picture, again wasn't too pleased.  Noah did some finagling so he could take the shirt from her and she could open another one, it worked.  He was now excited to have the shirt to go with his framed picture of his Cousin Vinnie.  BUT now it was Erika's turn to open a present and she stole the shirt right away from Noah.  :(  so sad..

Abby somehow got an oversized toothbrush..

We had so much fun and laughed so hard.

After everyone left we gave the kiddo's their Christmas Eve presents which of course were pajamas and slippers.

The kids went to bed and Santa came and did his thing.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve...White Elephant Gift Exchange!

After the Zoo Lights we headed over to Nana's house for a yummy dinner and then some fun times with a White Elephant Gift Exchange.  I love having Christmas Eve at Nana's house it always reminds me of when I was a kid.

Nana & Gabe

We gave Nana & Grandpa Jim some framed pictures of the kids and I made some books for them of pictures and events from 2011.  They loved them!

I absolutely LOVE these pictures.  This is what I always did as a kid.  Nana likes to remind me that I did this so I helped Abby out and then called Nana over to see.  The only difference was that Abby wouldn't eat them, she stuck her finger in MY mouth for me to eat them.  LOL

Now it's time for some fun with White Elephants...

This one was great!  When we came up with the gift certificate idea for a gift we thought that it would be funny to see who would get it and what they would say.  We thought it would be even more funny if Mindi happened to get that gift because she is the only one in the family that would actually use it.  When it was her turn to go pick a gift she kept hovering over that one and another one and finally decided on our gift.  To her surprise it was a gift certificate for her tattoo that she has been wanting.  She was so excited and just couldn't believe it!

Another one of our gifts that we came up with was a picture of Vinnie looking "bad" with it made out to his "#1 Fan" and autographed.  We framed it and included a $10 in the back of the frame.  Here is the picture that we used.

Mia was the one that got this gift and didn't look to pleased at what she had received.  Later down the line of opening and exchanging gifts, Noah took the picture from Mia leaving her to open a new gift.

When we were finished opening gifts we made our announcement that Noah needed to open the back of the picture frame.  He was so happy to see the $10 bill in there.  He thought it was great because he was already pleased with his framed picture of his Uncle Vinnie.  :) 

Mia on the other hand felt a little jipped.  Noah made her feel better by handing the $10 over to her...

That makes 2 years in a row that the Almanza Family was voted "Best Gift".

We better start thinking ahead now for next year...