The Noriega Family

Christmas day was filled with more magic.  We went down to Hector's family's house after our morning at home.  We ate more great food and then opened more gifts.  Natalia, Sienna and Eli opened stockings that Grandma made for them.  Sienna was a little cranky because she did not get a nap, but she still had fun and loved opening her presents.  

Estelle and Luke loved hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.  Estelle took a nap after we all ate, so she opened her gifts later.  

Natalia was excited to get an Elsa doll from grandma.  It was the one she has been wanting all year.  

The girls also got Elsa and Anna wigs, shoes and crowns.  Everyone had to try them on and everyone looked so lovely.  The girls love them all and have been having lots of fun with them at home. 

I had fun making the family calendars this year.  I love this picture of Krystale because she is making the exact same face as Sienna is in the picture in the calendar...they have so much in common.  

We all got such great gifts.  Estelle loves her wooden train.  Natalia and Sienna play with it too.  It is a hit. The girls are so excited to wear their new clothes.  They don't want to put on anything old.  We stayed another day at the parents' house.  The girls played with their new toys and the adults played lots of games.  

We came home to all our Christmas stuff still spread across the living room and the girls had a great time going through everything again.  And Natalia finally got to do her painting.  This was the gift she was most excited about so I let her do it while her sister's napped.  She loved it.  

The magic of Christmas morning never gets old.  I look forward to it every year.  The girls are all at such fun ages for it too.  They are so excited and honestly happy about every thing they get and they love giving, but at the same time, they are deep in the joy and glory of believing in Santa. 

We spent lots of time talking about Jesus during the month of December and my girls know that He is why we do all this Christmas celebrating, but when Christmas morning comes around, it is all about the gifts.  

Everyone got up at 7:00.  Natalia and Sienna came into our room and told us they were ready to go downstairs.  I asked, "did you make your bed?"  "Oh no," they ran back to their room.  Then I asked, "did you go potty?"  They quickly did that.  I made them get their hair done...quickly...and they could hardly wait any longer.

As Natalia came down the stairs, she exclaimed, "Oh! he did come.  That present is soooo big.  He came, Sienna, he came."  Before she looked for her stocking she wanted to see if Santa ate his pie.  Both Sienna and Natalia ran to the pie and were so excited to see that he ate it and that he had taken the picture they left for him.  

Estelle loved opening gifts this year.  Natalia hugged most of the gifts that she got, it was really sweet.  Estelle wanted to hold EVERYTHING that she got in her stocking all at the same time.  She didn't really care what it was, she just wanted to hoard it.  

Estelle got a little grumpy after awhile so we put her in her chair.  She was distracted for a bit.  She opened a little train at the end and just wanted to sit and watch it go around and around.  We wished we would have opened it first, because she was so happy to just sit there and watch it.  I think it was the last gift we opened.  

The girls got sticker books and money from my parents.  They really have not had much money before, so they were really excited to have their own money.  Natalia told me she might want to save hers and Sienna does not know what she wants to by yet (my guess...candy).  Sienna was so excited when she found her money.  It was in a little wallet.  She opened it and screamed, "my moneys!"  

Estelle had a different reaction to the money.  Her money was taped onto her sticker book.  She opened it and wanted to start ripping it off...she wanted to get to the sticker book.  She has no idea what money is so it was moments away from being ripped to shreds (I am exaggerating a little).  Hector took the book away and tried to get the money off the book because the book is what she really wanted, but she was not happy about the book being taken away.  She lost it...meltdown.  I just laughed though the whole thing because Hector was the one trying to get the taped money off the book.  He eventually succeeded (not easy getting tapped money off a book without ripping it) and Estelle was happy again.  

Other highlights include Sienna getting new socks. She really wanted new socks and almost went into a panic when the first few things she looked at were not socks.  She eventually opened some and all was well for her.  Hector got me some great gifts.  My favorites are the new purse and coat he got me.  I had fun getting Hector gifts again this year.  He is enjoying his BYU gear and fun toys (remote control helicopter, sling shots) that I got him.  We got each other the same game too, surprise!  I think Hector was most excited about the Legos.  They were a gift for the whole family.  

After a couple of hours of gift opening the girls used their new crayons and paper while I got ready to go to Hector's parents' house.  Hector crashed on the floor, so I had to snap a picture.  We all had a great Christmas morning.  

Christmas Eve was awesome!  Natalia and Sienna were excited all day.  Hector showed Natalia the Santa camera and she was so into it.  She wanted to watch were Santa was flying all afternoon.  It was really cute.  She kept telling us,"Look, Santa is real, I knew he was real, you can see him, he really is there flying, he has to be real because there he is."  It was a good geography lesson too.  He was flying over China and India and Natalia wanted to know all about that.  

Our Christmas Eve party was out last countdown activity.  We had Krystale and some friends, Katie, Evan and Maggie Gustafson, join us.  It was great.  I classed up my food a little this year and tried some fancier recipes.  It was all fantastic, but I cooked way to much (I haven't cooked again since Christmas Eve and we still have more left overs).  Everyone was full by time I got to the main course.  I did some fun food for the kids too.  

We played lots of Christmas themed games.  We had lots of laughs with the guessing game.  Sienna thought she could open her gift every time I answered yes to one of her questions and then she was so confused when I told her she had not guessed it yet.  We enjoyed pin the star of the tree, and a hot potato gift game that ended with some good freeze dancing.  Natalia, Sienna, Hector and Even tried to eat a cookie off their foreheads and we all laughed more than we thought possible.  We played lots of other silly games too.  It was fun and everyone enjoyed it.  

The girls got to open a new Christmas story book, which we read for our bedtime story.  They got out some some pie for Santa and put out their stockings.  They were exhausted and excited.  I think they fell right to sleep.  Hector and I stayed up with our friends and then watched a Christmas movie until the wee hours as we got stuff ready for Santa.  This is what the girls woke up to in the morning, our new stockings look so cute.