Christmas 2009

In November, we had 3 little boys placed with us, Dillan, 1, Nicholas, 2 & Elliot, 3. It made for a very busy Christmas. We did include them in our annual Christmas picture. We take it every year with everybody who is living with us at the time. Getting six kids 4 & under to all look at the camera is hard enough, we don't even worry about smiles! I guess Buddy, our dog, was not happy that he was not originally invited to be in the picture, so he posed himself.

You can just see the excitement in the room (the teenager was not ecstatic about being waken up before noon.)

He did perk up a little bit once the stockings were distributed.

Poor Dillan...his parents refuse to let me cut the back of his hair! I am only allowed to "maintain" his current style - if you can even call it that!

He wasn't as interested in his stocking as he was the gifts.

Santa finally got smart this year, and all of the little kids received a handheld game of some sort from him. (The first month the boys were here they all fought over Amata's Leapster). Since Amata already had one, she got a text to learn thing & Dylan got a drawing toy since he didn't really know how to play one; the others either got a v-tech pocket or a Leapster. The older boys got smaller gifts in addition to the cash they got to spend on our vacation.

Amata's favorite gift by far was her new outfit for dance. She literally wore it all day long...in the car on the way to the Cities (everybody in the gas station we stopped at to go potty loved it, too) to church that night & through dinner & gift opening at her auntie Marnee's!