Surprise!

Christmas with kids is so much fun. The anticipation of what I will receive is replaced by the preparation of surprises. And seeing their expressions was priceless!

We spent our Christmas Eve preparing sausage balls (a long-standing tradition in my family), doing the advance prep for Chocolate Cinnamon rolls (that, plus a 5:30am wake up time to start the rolls = too much work and WON'T be a tradition for this mama). We ended the evening with inflating this cool gift for the boys from Mima and Pa!

There was quite a bit of sharing going on as the boys swapped toys. Xander was gracious enough to let Keegan 'pretend' to ride his big-boy bike!

Evangeline and Trey were also enamored with their gifts!

With my mind totally focused on the kids, everyone caught me by surprise when they all chipped in for this! I was so surprised and excited that I just sat there and cried...

They all found it very ironic that my old camera bit the dust, just days before. And then two days before Christmas I also told Rich that for my birthday, I would love nothing more than for everyone to pitch in and get me a really good camera. He didn't even bat an eye and merely gave a half-interested shrug. Sneaky.