The Day After Christmas Shopping Experience

Usually, we avoid any shopping on the day after Christmas. Especially since we were returning, or I should say exchanging something. We thought we might be safe since it was at Ikea - plus they were offering breakfast for 99 cents. We gave Ryan some new dressers for Christmas, thought it was time to replace my old dressers from when I was like 20 or so. But, one of the boxes that got picked up was the wrong one. We loaded up the car and off we went. No Crowds! We ate breakfast first and then took care of all the exchanging and finding the right item.

Here's Doug pushing the cart with our trays on it. The total for all three of us to eat breakfast was less than $4.00!!!

All three of us we filled up. We each got eggs, hashbrowns and bacon, plus a side of sausage for Ryan. I mean it wasn't gourmet or anything, but it was tasty!
Ryan & I enjoying our meal:

Christmas Morning

Ryan is always up at the crack of dawn - literally! From the time he was born, if the sun is up, he is up. No matter how late he stays up the night before. He just does not sleep in. Except on Christmas Morning. He is the only kid I know that always sleeps in on Christmas Morning. This year he didn't get us up until almost 8:30!

We peeked over our landing to see if Santa had been here yet and sure enough, he had!

Ryan was very excited to get downstairs and see what Santa had brought him this year:

Our stockings were placed on the sofa full of goodies!
Ryan is checking the letter he left Santa to see if he got a reply - and he did!

This years addition to his nutcracker collection - a Rock star Nutcracker!

Sam really liked the smell of my stocking - over the smell of the goodies that Santa brought for him & Ranger:

This must be why - CHOCOLATE!!!
Doug opening a present that seemed to be particularly interesting to the dogs:

What on earth is this big package?

Ryan's first electric guitar!

Ryan has been telling us for months that he is ready to learn a third instrument - the guitar. He was getting pretty disappointed in us because we hadn't bought him one yet. Well, little did he know, we had been dealing with Santa in hopes of getting him one for Christmas!Sam is not so sure about all this excitement:
What is this? Another guitar - this time an acoustic that was given to us by a friend! That is the face of pure joy!

Now for the really hard decisions - which one to build first?

After we got everything opened and fully checked out and I got my sweet potatoes going for Christmas dinner, Doug made me Eggnog Pancakes. They were very yummy!

Enjoy this video of Ryan playing his new electric guitar for the first time!

Christmas Eve

It's that time of year again. Christmas Eve at my brother's house - with our traditional Mexican food, Christmas story, and gift exchange. This year a small talent show was added. It was a lot of fun. The only thing missing was my parents who were unable to attend due to some health issues - that have been taken care of! (That was the best Christmas present this year!)

Doug getting ready for dinner to be ready:

Look at all those yummy dishes. We had two types of enchiladas, four tamale flavors, taquitos, burritos, 7 layer dip and taco salads:

Goodies - YUM!

Ryan & Baylee before all the festivities got under way:

The talent show consisted of Hayden, Chandler and Ryan playing piano. Baylee sang a song for everyone but I wasn't in the room at the time and missed getting a photo of her performance. Sorry about that! I did get to hear her sing - very cute and full of personality just like her!

Getting ready for the gift exchange. This is a tradition from my family since before I was born. My brothers and I have very fond memories of our childhood gift exchange. It's fun to see the tradition continue.

Ben took over my camera for a bit during the evening. This is one of the wonderful shots he took of me:

So I returned the favor with this beauty, don't you just love his new fashion accessory?

My budding photographer

So, while we were at Zoo Lights Ryan decided he was hungry and had to have something to eat. So we sat and visited for a bit while he ate. Before his food got there, Ryan picked up my camera and started shooting some pictures of Ben, Brittany, Baylee and Payton. The thing about point and shoot digital cameras -as I'm sure some of you have experienced - when it's dark outside, nothing shows up on the screen on the back of the camera. Frustrating! My camera is a little old and maybe technology has changed that. Anyway, I love the pictures Ryan shot. Of course, having a subject that is more than willing to ham it up for the camera helps a lot! Whenever Ben is around, I know that there will be interesting photos taken!!!

Zoo Lights

The weekend before Christmas, we were able to go to the Zoo Lights with Ben, Brittany, Baylee and Payton. It was a lot of fun. It was really good to do something with them again - it's been awhile. After our hike in from our parking spot (it was across the street and down a ways from the zoo), we had fun. We even got to see one of the sleeping Komodo Dragons that are new to the zoo this year. We still haven't gotten back to see them during the daytime. The kids were great and the weather was perfect - not too cold!

Payton was all eyes checking out all the lights!

Me, Ryan & Doug:

The gang sitting down for a bit - well actually they were waiting for me to finish taking a photograph:

Peacock on display:

We walked under some lit up bats:

One of Ryan's favorite parts of Zoo lights is the Stingray Bay. He loves going in to pet them. They are pretty neat to watch gliding through the water.

Display while leaving the zoo: