Christmas with the Morrills!

Sorry I'm a bad blogger, especially when it comes to posting pictures I take with my real camera. It's not like uploading them is hard, but adding that extra step makes me procrastinate. Well, I finally got around to it, so here are our pictures from Christmas!

First off, we should have a record of what each child got from Santa. And since this is my journal (dang it, gotta go back and make a hard copy sometime...), here it is:

David got the Trio King's Castle, and spent several hours that morning putting it together.

I hear Santa got a really good deal on it and is really proud of herself, oops, I mean himself...

For the longest time Katy would just say that she wanted candy from Santa. I finally decided she should ask for a dollhouse, and it only took one suggestion for that to stick!

And Ryan decided the earliest that he wanted Maxus Draganoid. You can't tell very well from the picture, but it's 7 individual Bakugan that connect to form a big one. It's super cool if you're a 5 year old boy!


And here's what we came down to Christmas morning! Quite the haul! Of course, it's staged to look that way (things stacked with big empty spaces to give the illusion of more), and there isn't anything actually under the tree...but it still looks quite impressive!

Dang it, don't know why this one rotated. But I just noticed and don't want to go through the hassle of figuring it out, so just tilt your head to look at it. Here we have Katy, getting right to work playing with the dollhouse!

I did gifts from the kids a bit differently this year. Instead of taking them to the dollar store or something, I told them they could each spend $20, so about $5 per person. Granted, that cost way more than the dollar store, but they all picked very thoughtful presents for each other, and it was really sweet to see how much thought they put into it. This picture is David seeing what he got from Ryan. Apparently he's a bit excited!

See, a spy pen, cool, huh? It writes with "invisible" ink, then you shine the light (we're pretty sure it's a black light) to make it appear. It's actually pretty neat. Ryan knew that David wanted it, and got it for him. Ahhh.


I just love this picture, because I just love this girl. She was really excited about Christmas this year, and it was really fun to watch her experience it all!


I told Grandma Morrill that the boys both like Lego Power Miners. She took that and ran with it! I think we now have almost every one they make! They have been having lots and lots of fun with them! I don't know why David is the only one who looks excited in this picture, Ryan was very, very excited too!


Because Ryan spent a bit more than $5 on David, he had to spend a bit less on Katy. But that was okay, because he wanted to get her playdoh anyway. He picked one with TWO different pink ones! She was/is very happy about it!

David got Ryan a Bakugan, and it appears that he likes it as well! Apparently this is one he really wanted. Good thing David knows these things, because I sure don't!

More Power Miners, more happy kid!


In an effort to not overspend this year (I actually did really well, despite the picture of piles of presents), the kids each got some practical presents. They each got new shoes that they've been needing, and they each got a hooded towel. I actually bought the parts shortly before we moved out of Utah, but never got around to making them. So a few weeks before Christmas I pulled out the sewing machine while Katy was napping and the boys were at school, and whipped these out really quick!

They chose the colors back forever ago when I got them. David chose yellow, to match his Lovey.

And Katy finally has a pink towel. Oh joy of joys! She's been asking to use a pink towel for months, but we only had lots of blues, greens, browns, and whites. She is quite happy to have a pink one now!

So, that's Christmas morning at our house. We hung around for a while to play (not clean up...boy did I have work to do later!), then drove to Grandma & Grandpa Smiths house to play with all the aunts & uncles & cousin Brady. And dog cousins Sadie & Ruby of course. We had lots of fun...and I didn't get my camera out of my purse the entire time. I'll have to get pictures from other people who weren't so lazy!