Last Christmas Post!

After we opened are presents at our house, played with them and then got fed and dressed we headed over to Tyler's parent's house where more gifts awaited us and so did Tyler's favorite lunch ever- shrimp cocktail!

Before opening presents, Tyler, Steven, Ben & Mariah attacked Tyler's mom with all his Nerf Guns, evil. And yet she still let us open the gifts she got us.

Inside that present were 2 Spider-Man action figures for Steven:

Ben adores Yoshi so this was obviously such a perfect gift for him:

Lucy got a dress, boots and board books. We obviously had to try on the dress & boots- how adorable is she!? Too bad her head is so floppy and so she looks kind of silly in the pictures below...

Tyler got 2 silly shirts & a pair of pants and I got my favorite gift- Amazon gift cards! We are so spoiled! After lounging around there house for a bit it was time to go my parent's house and get spoiled even more (if that's possible!?). 

Before getting spoiled though, Steven randomly threw up. He complained that he had an owie in his mouth and he was going to die and then I took him to the bathroom where he tossed his cookies. Poor kid :( Thankfully it was just that one incident and then he was fine and double fortunately no one else seems to be sick so hopefully it was just too much junk food that caused it....

Rebecca made the boys these super cute finger puppets. 

Tyler can now destroy mini worlds!

Ben got a full sized pillow pet at long last!

Steven got the Wii Game "Just Dance for Kids"

 

Here's my mom with the calendar my boys colored for her:

Grandma got Lucy not 1 but 2 Cabbage Patch dolls. Rebecca got her the cute hair bow. Doesn't she look like she's picking her nose, too funny!

After opening presents, we had our Christmas Feast of ham, and then basically just hung out. I love spending time with my family and it was such a good Christmas!

Christmas Morning

The night before Christmas I told Steven he couldn't get up until either the sun came up or mommy got up with Lucy. At 6am Lucy started to stir and seconds later Steven was in my room, brimming with excitement saying, "Santa took down my stocking. He can't take them down!" Which translated into, "I wanna go see my presents now!" Unfortunately, I am an evil mom and wanted to document his reactions so I wouldn't let him go downstairs until I finished feeding Lucy. He had such a hard time waiting and kept going to the stairs and sneaking peeks at the fireplace. 

When he was finally able to go see what Santa gave him (which was the "BatmanVille" he had been asking for, for weeks), this is the lame reaction he gave us:

Lucy, however, gave us this really "thrilling" reaction to the princess duck Santa gave her:

And me, being such a big goober, gave this awesome reaction to the new, fancy, digital video camera Santa got me. No more discs for me! Wahoo!

However, when Ben finally woke up and toddled down the stairs, I think he gave the best reaction. He was super happy about his new Batman toy:

Daddy got a Nerf Gun from Santa but seemed much more excited about his Lord of the Rings LEGO set I got him:

And after all the presents were unwrapped (which went way to quickly for Steven he tore through them and less quickly for Ben who needed help) we had to take our traditional picture in front of the Christmas tree with all our gifts:

Steven didn't want to smile cause he was too busy playing with his new toy:

I love Ben's smile in this one, notice how the boys got pretty much the same things in an attempt to prevent fights:

Poor Lucy got stiffed on presents- just a teapot (which the boys have already claimed and have been playing with), princess ducky and hair bow but she doesn't know any better yet....

I got spoiled as always with the video camera, a massage pillow, a sweater and some cute accessories:

Tyler, as always, with all his childish presents:

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always spent at Tyler's parent's house. We started out with a delicious dinner of both ham & turkey in which I helped contribute the mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are lots of work so I did some make ahead ones and everyone said how amazing they were but I think they were just being nice. To me they tasted average but average is good enough for me :)

After dinner we opened up our PJs. This year I tried to be matchy and all my kids got nice striped PJs. 

If only I could have got a decent picture of all 3 of them in their jammies. In the first one Ben is all far from Steven but then in the next one, Steven's got Lucy in a head lock- that was him trying to keep her head up...

Tyler & I aren't pictured in our pj's but I got Tyler an awesome shirt that said "Super Heroes have have issues too" and he was sweet enough to get me a shirt that has a big pig and says "Mmm. I smell bacon!" 

After opening the pj's Tyler's dad read the story of Christ's birth. Bryson said he wanted to follow along with his Poppy but he got super bored and it was pretty funny to watch him near the end as he sighed deeply and stared at the ceiling. 

  

After we finished the story we all got in our cars and drove around a nearby neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. When that was done we roasted marshmallows & Starbursts in the backyard. It was an excellent ending to our nights. We then headed home and put the boys in bed. Steven wanted me to go to bed too asap so Santa could come. He was so stinkin' excited!

And before I forget, I must share a funny story. Earlier that night when I was changing Lucy's diaper, Bryson came by and said, "When her gonna grow a penis?" It was too funny! His mom had to explain to this boy who is surrounded by brothers & boy cousins that Lucy is a girl and has girl parts instead. He then wanted to know how she went pee. Oh Bryson :)

Making Santa's Cookies

Every year we make cookies for Santa but I have always felt like there are too many cookies for us to decorate so this year I invited my parents and my brother's family to come help us. It was way fun and I think I'll be inviting them to help out every year.

My mom had been given a roll of cookie dough so she brought it over and helped us with rolling and cutting it out. 

Ben kept sneaking bites of cookie dough and if he got caught he would flash a sheepish grin- it was pretty cute

Mecca & Oliver did a good job of supervising us

 

Once the cookies were done and cooled off it was decorating time. Everyone participated (except for Lucy & Oliver who were sleeping) and we all had fun making fun of each other's cookies. We are such a loving family ;) 

Daddy had to help Ben with decorating a lot because all he wanted to do was eat the cookies

You may not be able to see it but Mike made a smiley face cookie that we decided must be Oliver

My mom had wanted me to make a melting snowman cookie so I did. But it wasn't quite up to her par- apparently I was supposed to actually melt the marshmallow....

Tyler being gross as he poses with his cookies

Steven was the opposite of Ben- he had too much fun decorating his cookies and loaded them with every topping imaginable. Tyler warned him that those cookies might give Santa a heart attack so Steven decided not to give his to Santa...

In the end everyone had just the right amount of cookies to decorate and we weren't left with too many. We just had the perfect amount for Santa with just a few leftover for us to eat. Excellent work Brady/Hatch Family!

Gingerbread Houses

Last year the Hatches decided to start the tradition of making gingerbread houses (technically graham cracker houses) a few days before Christmas. This year we did it the Sunday night before Christmas and it was loads of fun. Tyler made the "glue" (aka the frosting) and then got right down to work building our house. I had wanted to be different and make an Angry Bird course but was out voted by Steven who insisted it HAD to be a house. Once Tyler finished with the house (that was even equipped with a balcony) Steven & I got to decorate it. Steven helped put M&M's on the roof and gum drops on the front yard. Benny helped by eating the supplies so we wouldn't have to decorate so much ;)

I didn't get pictures of the others creations but Logan & Melissa made skyscrapers who everyone called the twin towers when they fell (we are sick people aren't we!?). Keshia & Scott made a skating rink, full of sour patch kid's skaters doing all sorts of tricks. His sister Tara made a really awesome house. Jezerea & Mariah made Judgement Day!? It had the great and spacious building among other things.... Travis made a house that didn't quite live up to high standards he set for himself last year- it kept falling apart :(

Steven being a cheese ball as he anxiously waits for daddy to finish making the frosting

Their silly cousin Bryson

Daddy hard at work

Steven getting grumpy because he's tired of waiting to decorate

Ben is happy of course because he's been stealing & eating supplies

Lucy slept through most of the house making

Before decorations

And all of us showing it off after the decorations

Check out the balcony!