*Sigh* I finally have my hands on 'my' computer after a long week trip Rob took it on to SF. I'm glad both made it home safely and now I can finally finish writing about Christmas. It now seems so long ago that I can hardly remember all of the details. Maybe a play-by-play with pictures will bring it all back. Sit back and prepare yourselves for a long read. Or just look at the pics.

We had such a wonderful Christmas with Tonnette and Mom & Dad Jones. The kids were elated to have so much family with us for so long. The day after Tonnette came Rob took her and the kids to Fiesta Plaza giving me the chance to stay home and bake without having to watch the kids. Heaven. The orange rolls turned out (as Austin like to say) "Scerrrrumpitious!" I ended up eating them continuously the entire holiday.
And here are the twins and Tonnette at Fiesta Plaza.

After Mom & Dad flew in we all went to on a sleigh ride even if we didn't have any snow. Poor Austin had already started getting sick by then and was pretty miserable.

By Christmas Eve all the kids were pretty excited for Santa to come. Halfway through dinner Austin went to bed, sick and miserable.
The rest of us stayed up and acted out the nativity scene and got a plate ready for Santa. After the kids went to bed we all went to work setting up Christmas. Austin slept in our room and sick or not, he woke up at his usual 6 a.m. time. We told him to go back to sleep and Robert snuck out side and range jingle bells outside of the windows. All the kids came bursting through the doors, all talking at once. "Did you hear Santa?" "Did you see the sleigh?" "Did he eat his cookies?" "Did you hear the reindeer?" The boys were so excited and sad that they didn't catch Santa in the act. Alaina-diva, of course, calmly informed the boys, "I heard Santa. And I saw him. And I talked to him." Little liar had the boys even more bummed out that they missed him. Once Austin got over the excitement of nearly seeing Santa and after he was assured that he got presents, he turned around and walked back to bed. Poor, sick, baby. I had to coax him out to come lay on my lap as we watched everyone open presents.

After the excitement of opening the presents the women went off to make dinner and the kids (plus Dad and Robert) worked hard playing with the booty.
I hope you notice that there are no kids in this picture. Those two spent 4 hours putting this masterpiece together. It was knocked over in 30 seconds by one excited child (no one actually fessed up to this....we heard the crash and saw three worried faces staring back at us.) Christmas dinner was tasty and it was so wonderful to have everyone together.
Dinner consisted of corn-stuffed tomatoes, orange sweet potatoes, a really great warm bacon, mustard, spinach salad (thanks to Tonnette) Mom's mashed potatoes, fruit salad, cinnamon/brown sugar/pineapple ham and a really tasty cheese ball. YUM! Just looking at it makes me hungry again. The picture above is funny b/c Alaina is over-animated, Ethan is all about the food and Austin looks asleep which was a pretty accurate portrait of the evening.
And here are two very tired guys, sleeping it off.
The week after Christmas we mostly all just relaxed. Ethan and Alaina both managed to get sick one after the other during the week and so we didn't end up going many other places. We did manage to play A LOT of settlers though. We had two packs put together and so the board stretched over half the table. The other half was piled with orange rolls, cheese ball & chocolate.

We did manage to squeeze in a visit to Discovery Place and we all made gingerbread houses. Robert & Ethan went for the French Chalet, Tonnette & Laina went for the cute cottage and Austin and me went for the barn look. That is, until the roof caved in from the weight of the candy. After that we couldn't get it back up...even with Dad's help. In the end we had to admit that we had more of a double-wide at a trailer park than anything else. I decided to add a lean-to garage and a barking dog to add to the effect.

One of the funniest things about Christmas was Alaina's Christmas presents. All she wanted for Christmas was tools...which Santa found at a great deal on craigslist, by the way. She also got tons of girly things that she also loved, like a cute purse and a parasol. Ever since Christmas she has played with them all at the same time.
Well, that is the end of my very, very lengthy post. If you are still with me now I just want to express how blessed we felt with having both Mom & Dad as well as Tonnette with us during the holidays. We loved having you here with us. The kids are still talking about your visit everyday. Having you here completed the feeling of Christmas for us. Thank you so much for coming!