2010 WRAP-UP!

Christmas came and went way too fast like it does every year. We stuck with all the usual traditions...lunch at my house with the Rodgers on Christmas Eve since RJ had to work that night, then for dinner it was on to the Rodgers' house for fondue and presents, Christmas Day we had the Jensens all come over after dinner for cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate with Grandma Jensen and of course presents and then the next day, Boxing Day, we headed up to Prescott Valley for Conner's baby blessing and then that night we were off to Nate's house for dinner with Grandpa Jensen and Jackie and again, more presents. It is always a loooong 3 days but fun 3 days.

I am not sure why I didn't really take any pictures this year so here is a little glimpse into our Christmas weekend.

All the Rodgers at Conner's blessing...All the Jensen grandkids on Boxing Day!The Nativity we did with the Jensens - Brylee, Emma and Maddy are the angels...We had a very close call this year with Emma and Santa Claus. Jared and I used to stay up all night Christmas Eve wrapping all the gifts, this year I decided that was silly so I did it a few days ahead of time. So we put the twins to bed on Christmas Eve, took Eli and Emma out front to put out the reindeer food on the grass (oats and glitter, thanks to their school teachers), got out out the Santa plate and put his cookie on their and poured him a glass of milk and then sent those 2 off to bed. Jared and I waited 15 - 20 minutes and decided that was enough. I ate as much of the cookie as I was going to eat and dumped the milk back into the carton and we were off to our room to finish wrapping the 2 big gifts I couldn't wrap ahead of time. We finished wrapping them, stuck everything out in the family room under the tree and headed back to our room to wrap our Jensen gifts. All of the sudden in the middle of our wrapping I took a big gasp and scared the crap out of Jared..."Carol! what's wrong?" Very quickly I reply back, "um, Emma just ran by our room!" bum, bum, bum. We sat their for a minute or two trying to decide what to do and then we grabbed the Jensen wrapping paper and gifts and took them into her room to talk to her. Lucky for me, I used different wrapping paper so it wasn't the same as the stuff under the tree. Jared then proceeds to ask Emma what she was doing out of bed. Before she can answer she bursts into tears, "I had to go to the bathroom and I couldn't sleep so I went and then before I went out there I said a little prayer to see if it would be ok and I thought it would be so I went out there." The tears keep flowing and Jared and I go on to tell her how once you go to bed you can't get up again, and we really hope Santa was done laying out all of your gifts cause if you go out there and he is in the middle of it - that's it - he doesn't come back, that's why we were in our room with the tv on really loud wrapping Jensen gifts so that we wouldn't disturb Santa. The crying continued and so I said, "the only way to know if Santa was done is if he drank the milk and ate the cookie because that is the last thing he does before he leaves. Did you see the cookie and milk out there?" Still crying, she says, "no, I tried to find it but I couldn't." We went out there together and found the plate and lucky for us the milk was all gone and the cookie was almost gone so Santa must have been finishing his cookie when Emma went out there - phew - we determined that he had left us everything he had for us. Emma sweet and grateful as she is says, " I knew he must have left us everything because that is a ton of stuff out there!" That was a close one but lucky for us we still have a believer!

She got a bike for Christmas which is what she really wanted!The boys getting ready to open presentsOne of the things the twins got was a basketball hoop. Tyson is quite an athlete so Santa and Grandma Rodgers got him some things that would help develop his mad athletic skills for his college scholarship he will be receiving :)Of course there is the piggy bank picture which we take every year to see how the twins have grown (sorry they switched places in each picture)!Eli got a remote control helicopter for Christmas and Daddy liked it so much that Grandma and Grandpa Rodgers bought him one for his birthday so we went down to the the church cultural hall on New Years Eve and flew helicopters for a bit.And, did you know that I have an identical twin? (click on the picture and you can see us better)We had a great Christmas and already look forward to next year :)