The Teeter Times: Christmas #1.

Christmas morning!

It was decided (not by me, I might add! lol) that Christmas must take place at 5am. We got up at 4:45am, got the kids up, and drove across town to my parents' house. The kids walked in the door shaking the jingle bells and singing "Jingle Bells." They went from door to door, excitedly singing. It was pretty cute to watch.

IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! CHRISTMAS AT LAST!!!

The vultures go in for the stocking kill.

Santa left Russ some aviators...hmmm...interesting.

Russ convinced Brooklyn that she needed to pick up her ringing banana and talk into it...that's what 5am does to people.

Sam loves Audrey. He wanted to show her all of the stuff in his stocking, and share his crackers and cheese with her. I find it funny that Chris stole Sam's Sesame Street coloring book to page through...

Brooklyn was declared this year's honorary Santa's Helper and got to help dole out the gifts.

Dene's awesome gift to the newest branch of Lybberts.

My dad can be a dork. But he can be pretty funny too. (I love you, Dad!!) He wrapped up a gift "To my new son, Kenny" or something like that. Kenny unwrapped it...and it was a gift for Russ ("to my other son"). Russ unwrapped it, and it was for Chris. Chris unwrapped it and it was a gift for Alifaio. I honestly can't remember what was in the gift in the end, but it was pretty funny!

So, Santa has put these hard candies in our stockings since before I can even remember. And the only one of us in our family that likes them? My dad. We would forfeit all of our hard candy to him in the past (or save it to the very last thing in our stocking...besides the nuts...). Go figure, Sam is a hard candy FIEND! So the tradition lives on...

Haha, I love his reaction! Good job, Grammie and G-pa! He always says, "I going go in duh garage and pway wif my tools."

Kenny bought Brook and Sam both a 6-pack of the good soda! I was curious to see what my kids did since they seem to covet soda, but they've had it only a handful of times, and only in sips (to my knowledge anyway...). Grammie wrapped up only ONE of the sodas for each of them, and this was Brooklyn's reaction in the photo below. I was really surprised when BOTH of my kids took no more than a few sips of each of their sodas! Funny kids.

Pwaying wif his tools again.

Jackson has the Christmas Coma going on.

"Vroom, vroom Daddy-o."

Awww, I love him!!

Chris and Audrey got Brook and Sam a neat book about bugs and I can't tell you how many times we've snuggled in bed and read it. Pretty sweet book, actually. It holds my attention! HA!

This is Chris's gift to Audrey. He started making this (a super duper breakfast tray, complete with warming bags, removable pouches, an area to slip photos in, a storage area...the works!) less than a WEEK before Christmas!! INCLUDING learning to sew! I was way impressed.

Sam loves his sensory bin, so he wanted Jackson to bust his out too!

I found this idea on Pinterest and thought how long it'd been since my parents had photos of ALL of their kids (and grandkids!). So my siblings were awesome and were all able to get photos of themselves and their families with the letters L O V E ! I am SO bummed I didn't get a photo of the end result! My parents put them vertical along their brick wall and it looks really, really neat. Anyways, with West being on a mission, it has been over a year since any of us have seen him, and this is my parents opening up his photo.

Shelan had me for Christmas this year and she went over the top! She found this awesome mirror at an antique store and covered it in lace. It is HUGE! It's currently taken up residence over my fireplace and it fits in wonderfully!

Okay, so I made this hat for a friend of mine...to fit her FOUR YEAR OLD'S head...yeeeeah, going to have to re-work that pattern, I think.

Hot stuff.

Hot Stuff, Part Deux.

Who doesn't love squishing Styrofoam peanuts??

This about sums up Christmas.

Alifaio is a Tongan guy who lived with my parents for a couple of months and has become a good friend of the family. He was telling me about HIS traditional Christmases...they would get a small Ziploc bag of goodies (chips, etc.), and when he was young then he got the same gift every year. Literally. It was a toy gun. He would get to play with it for a few hours and then it would get put away until the following Christmas. He talked about how excited he was on Christmas Eve, thinking about getting to play with it again. It definitely put things in perspective.

He was incredibly appreciative for the goodies he got on Christmas. Especially after my dad showed him how to put his toaster and egg pan to work to make a homemade Egg McMuffin!