The Longest Christmas Post Ever... and there's more to come!

Scott planned out Christmas this year. He made a list of activities each day, workouts, games, etc. I laughed, but it was really great and got us up and running much more than we would've. Everyone had a great time. Thanks, hon!

Seaman Fam Christmas started off with an extended family home evening at Scott's Grandma's house. It was great! He has so many cousins in town. It's great. We ate, visited, and sang around the piano. His aunt even busted out the chimes. It was a lot of fun.

Here is scrappy-haired Alisa (pre-hair cut) feeding the puppy (the stuffed animal in the corner). She is quite the scientist lately. Always mixing food into her drinks. It makes for lovely clean-up.

Notice Jake's "running clothes." He wears them daily to show off his muscles. This is not an exaggeration. He was wearing them again today. He only takes a break when I hide them long enough to wash them. It's the middle of the winter, crazy boy!

Cute boy!

Meet Josh (Jenni's boyfriend). He is great. Josh and Jake built a snowman. And flexed.

Everyone in Scott's family is so talented. They all sing and play the piano. We decided to have a talent show of less-known talents. It was great. Some highlights were:

Jenni taking Josh's blood pressure. In the end, her sphynctomomometer (am I close?) was broken, so she took his pulse instead. Equally as impressive.

Josh and I, after gruelling hours of practice (ha!) performed the age-old WORM. Yep, still got it... sort of. A big thank you to my EFY kids for showing me how to do this in 1999. Wow. That was when I was young and vigorous.

Les surprised us all when he busted out "House of the Rising Sun" complete with piano. Who knew he could sing and play?!

Josh impressed us all in 2 minutes and 13 seconds.

Kels (sorry about the closed eyes!) is an amazing song-writer and self-taught ukelele player. She is awesome. Her love song was great.

I don't know where my pictures went, but also included were a slow piano duet (The Russian Dance from the Nutcracker) by Scott and me. Linda played and sang a love song she wrote for Les. Bethi and Derek played their guitars. Seriously, this family is talented!

Another night, we did an extended family crossword puzzle. Did you know you can make them online? The girls won.

Christmas eve we went swimming at the aquaplex. It is my kids favorite place. Alisa asks daily to go to the "ackldsskja[indiscernable] plex" or as Jake calls it, the "octaplex."

Christmas Eve night was really fun. We acted out the Nativity to the text of Luke 2. Then we had a lovely spiritual sharing of feelings and gratitude [testimony meeting] before eating Olive Garden by candle light and listening to "Candlelight Carol" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Jake was the Jedi shepherd.

Christmas picture before dinner.

Christmas morning we woke up around 7 am. Santa came! We had a great time and were totally spoiled. One tradition the Seaman's have is for Santa to leave a package of crumb donuts in the stockings. It's fun. The kids loved it. They also got a little gift. The babies even got a pack of baby food in their stockings. The girls always get a wonderful Clinique gift. I love it.

Alisa tried on every item of clothing that morning. Here she's putting on her dollar tree princess socks. When she wears her footies this way, she calls it her "bu-fwy" or butterfly.

Jake with his shark drawing on their new easel.

Mario shirt. Good job, Scott.

Snow princess dress combined with sparkly pink pants, playing with her "squishy."

Kels made Brookie this adorable beanie. Too bad Brookie's big ol' noggin is in the 97th percentile (she is in the 70th for weight and a whopping 25th for height--stubby and tubby).

We were totally spoiled for Christmas. Thank you! It was such a fun time. My kids were excited about everything, from Santa eating the cookies to clothes to toys. Jake's prayer around Christmas made me hope that they also got the real meaning of Christmas, and why we get and give presents: Thank you for the present Jesus gave, that he died for us...

We went bowling after Christmas. Of course, Alisa found the pink ball and Jake found the green one.

Sunday after Christmas all decked out. We all got some new item thanks to Scott's parents. Jake has wanted a suit like dad's for so long. He was thrilled Santa remembered!

Christmas 2009

Cousins... 15 days apart. Luke is long and stiff compared to Brooke. Both kids cut their first teeth over Christmas. It made for long nights, but at least there was a good reason for all the crying!

Jake's spiderman mask and web shooter. An ebay find, so no actual web, just water. He's thrilled.

Josh celebrated his 25th birthday with us on Sunday. Jenni cooked up a yummy storm in the kitchen. Runzas (native Nebraskan food), coconut and strawberry cake.

Sorry. I couldn't get a modest picture of Brooke. It was the angle. Two babes in a tub.

Look at those crystal blue eyes. Love this girlie!

Teething babes

Luke giving Brookie hugs. She didn't like that too much.

There was a fantastic storm a few days before Christmas and then a few days after. I love having a white Christmas! The kids and Scott had a great time sledding/snowboarding down the big hill on the Seaman's property.

While Scott helped Jake "snowboard" down the hill, Alisa crawled through this barbed wire fence. Here he is laying down the law.

On the little snowboard

Jake impressed all of us with his balance.