Christmas at the Madorma's

(I am catching up on blogging...so sorry for the delay.)

After Christmas morning at our house, we drove to my parents house for brunch.  It was nice because we were able to leave Buddy at our house - typically my parents have to turn their garage heater on and then we visit Buddy a couple times in their garage to make sure he's not getting into trouble, which surprisingly he never did.  (My Mom is allergic to Buddy (pretty much anything that sheds) so he is not allowed in the house).

We ate a delicious brunch (including a tradition favorite - orange rolls) then immediately had the kids open up gifts.  In order for each kid to get 'their moment' and for each adult to see what they got, instead of a free for all, we wrote down each child's name along with who it was from (ex: To Logan From Aunt Dawn & Uncle Steven).  Then each adult got to pick the next name out of a hat and then we watched each child open gifts and took pictures - it worked out quite nice that I believe we'll do it that way again next year.  Logan got several new toys - it will be so exciting when he actually plays with them.

The kids went downstairs to play with their new toys and the adults opened gifts.  We all had each other's name in a grab bag.  We tried to keep it a secret, but by Christmas morning some people knew who had who. Everybody really got some nice things.   Here are some pics of gift-opening:

Michael got an acoustic guitar...

Logan got several new toys including a cell phone,

squishy building blocks,

and a play house.

Isabella enjoyed her new 'band' set (courtesy of John and I....which James, Melissa, Dawn & Steven all plan to get Logan the noisiest toys to get us back)...

TJ (& Michael) got 'swings' for their bedrooms....

Jakob got a dart gun....

Lexy probably had the best Christmas she's ever had...she got two "American Girl-type" dolls, which Grandma made her several outfits for them....and she got a horse and an armoire for them....oh, she was in heaven!!!!!  (still is)

We made my parents a Grandchildren calendar.  We do this every year and they love to see new pics of their grandchildren every month.  This is a pic of everybody gathered around to check it out. 

Grandma & Grandpa playing with Logan.

We relaxed, napped, ate dinner...and then we came home.  

Yeah, and out of all 3 houses, we somehow managed to NOT get a picture of our family by the Christmas tree....so we took it on Jan. 11th (better late than never)!