The Ropelato's: ~Merry Christmas~

I remember, when growing up, we knew we couldn't get up until 6:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. I remember some Christmas's waking up at 1:00, my parents telling us to go back to bed, then waking up at 2:00, and my parents telling us to go back to bed, and so on through the whole night until 6:00 in the morning. My brothers and I were good because even though we had to walk passed the living room where all of the presents were to go to my parents room, we never looked to see what Santa had brought us until everyone was up. I guess my kids haven't been trained :) Because I thought that would happen, but I was wrong.

Santa came to our house between 12:00 and 1:00. He had to make sure everyone was asleep :), well Dave and I were just dozing off when we heard Mckell scream "Mom and Dad, Santa came!!!" It was about 1:25 am. Dave grabbed Mckell and said it wasn't time to get up yet, so for her to climb in bed with us and go to sleep. Well, she was so excited, that she really wasn't sleeping. She was just jabbering away. Dave and I decided that this arrangement was not going to work if we wanted to get any sleep, so we sent Mckell back down to her bedroom and told her it was too early to see what Santa had brought (I might mention that she really already knew what he brought because she looked at it all before coming into our room). About 5 or 10 minutes had passed when Dave heard someone out in the living room, so he went out to check. It was Mckell, lol. So this time Dave decided to go down with her to her room and sleep down there to make sure she stayed. Well he was just dozing off, when he heard footsteps running up the stairs. He jumped up and ran upstairs to find Hunter. He grabbed Hunter and Mckell (she had followed them both up) and dragged them into our bedroom. It was now about 2:00 am. We told them that Christmas wasn't going to start until about 6:00, so they'd better go back to sleep (Dave and I really wanted to go to sleep for the night, we'd hadn't really gone to sleep yet). So the kids climbed in bed with us, and 10 minutes went by and Hunter couldn't take it. He had also looked to see what Santa had brought and he wanted to go out and play with it. He jumped out of bed to escape into the living room. Dave and I were right behind him pulling him back into our room. This didn't stop. It was a fight for about another 15 minutes to get him to lay down, lol. Finally I grabbed a pillow and went to lay infront of my bedroom door, so he couldn't escape. We told the kids to go to sleep, but they said that was impossible. They were sooo excited! Hunter kept pleading with me to let them go see all their stuff, but I said No. After all, it was only 2:30 at this point and way too early. After a while, Dave and I realized that the kids would not be going to sleep and if Dave and I wanted to get any sleep, we might as well cave in and go see what Santa brought so we could then go back to bed. So at 2:50 am, we woke Lexi up and started Christmas :)

Santa brought our family a Wii, some Wii games, some board games, lots of books, and clothes. Hunter also got, from us, a Harry Potter Lego's set, and a Harry Potter DS game. For Mckell, I "remodeled" my old doll house that I got when I was young. I repainted it, put new carpet and lynoleum in it, and filled it with all new Barbie furniture. She also got several new Barbies to go in it from Hunter and Lexi. Lexi got a Rapunzel 4 wheeler and a monkey tent.

So after opening all the gifts and setting up the Wii for the kids to play, Dave, Lexi, and I all went back to bed. It was about 4:00. We slept until 8:30 when Dave's parent's came bringing their gifts.

Then my parents came to see what the kids had gotten and to have breakfast. After that,we all got ready and headed out for the day. We went to my families for lunch, more presents, and to talk to my brother Christian, who is on his mission in England.