Merry Christmas! Or should I say....Merry Day-After Christmas!! It looks like Toys 'R Us has exploded in our living room, but it can wait, right?? This was by far the best, most magical one yet. It was really the first year that Brenden got the whole Santa thing and he was so much fun. It was a lot of running from place to place on Christmas day, but our time at home Christmas morning was perfectly wonderful.

For months, everytime we went into a certain store at our local malls, Brenden was in love with a train table they had set up....so Santa knew just what to get him.....but enter pink kitchen, and the train table was old news! Brenden has yet to touch the train set, so we plan to put the trains away for now, flip the table top over, and let him build his bazillions of Handy Manny construction sets instead. The biggest hit Christmas morning was a Handy Manny lunchbox....which he will get to use in about 2 months :(

Santa of course left Madelynn a baby doll...what little girl doesn't get a baby doll for Christmas?! And she is in love.....she holds the baby, pats her head, gives her a bottle, hugs, and loves her. I might add that it's a no frills, plain jane baby doll....some of the babies these days are insane!

I have such a desire to start family traditions that my kids will do even when they have families of their own, but I have a tough time coming up with ideas that aren't too corny. So this year, we started a few....Elf on the Shelf being one. For the past few years I have heard of this, seen pictures, and thought "wow what a cool thing to do with your kids." While standing in Hallmark one day trying to talk myself into buying it, Jonathan reminded me what a good tradition it would be....one that our kids could hand down to their kids. So we bought one....Brenden named him Snack....we read the story that comes with the elf....and every morning, the first thing Brenden would do when he woke up was look to see where he was. Madelynn finally caught on too, and many mornings she was the first to spot him. If you have kids and like tradition, go buy one!! It's also a great way to remind your kids that they have to be on their best behavior for Santa....just sayin'.

We also had a birthday party for Jesus after opening all our presents. I couldn't bear the thought of my kids eating birthday cake for breakfast, so I made a blueberry coffee cake instead. We lit a candle, sang Happy Birthday, and made sure they knew why we celebrate Christmas.

We have been truly blessed over the past year and are looking forward to the new year that lies ahead. Big changes are about to rock my world, and while I'm not sure I'm quite ready, I know that God's plan will continue to unfold, I will adjust to the change, and life will go on.