Santa Showed!

And boy did he......there were two extremely lucky and happy kids at our house on Christmas morning.......So the month long preparation to deliver the perfect holiday climaxed with a 30 second unwrapping spree, lots of squeals and yells, and mom thinking to herself.....no...no not so fast....savor it......but what kid understands savor it....take it all in.....but the smiles on their face and the excitement to tear into every box and spread every piece of plastic all over the floor in a frenzy to play with everything makes it all worth it.....so since it went so fast, as it always does I did my best to click the camera incessantly and capture every sweet moment that I can so I can Savor it, again and again........ Here is how it went.......

Christmas Eve Brooke sprinkled out the reindeer food......

The kids said farewell to Little Nicky.....

Brooke holding up her sleepy brother so he doesn't miss out on the events....

Laying out some Grub for Santa and Brady trying very hard to keep his eyes open...

So you would have thought bedtime would have been a breeze with the sleepy induced Brady from the last two pictures......but then reality set in on what was to come in the morning and then the following ensued.

Going B-A-N-A-N-A-S

So our little night owl and sleeper inner.....decided to rise at 5:50am that morning.....poor thing.....you see we installed the rule that I grew up with: no one goes downstairs until everyone is up.......she waited......she waited......she paced.....she flipped ......she flopped in bed with us.....she tried to make noise by going to the bathroom a lot......but still no sign of her brother.....Finally we gave in at 7:05 and said Okay go wake your brother......

Finally she sensed it getting closer!

7:14 when mom and dad finally had their wits about them we headed down......

again waiting for mom and dad to shake a tail......

The moment they have been anticipating all year.....

Who gets that excited over socks? One Brooke Munson.

Brady sifting though his stocking.....

Halloween? Nope not for one Brady Munson.....costumes are his favorite.....and a wardrobe staple meet Wolverine. Other crowd favorites were The Kinect, a suitcase for Brooke, Orbeez,Trio Batman, Buzz jet pack...........

Peace out.......

Here's some videos of an excited Brady....

The repeatedly asked for Trio Batman!



We spent Christmas eve with Poppa and Penny and got even more goodies...
Brady loved all the tools and pretends to be in Poppas workshop all the time....

I can only imagine every piece of clothing is going to be full of bling and bedazzled!!
Hanging with Poppa..

Christmas day we headed out to see Grandma and Greg and spend the day at the beach!

Now that is one big stocking.

Brady couldn't get enough of the plastic play items.....

he built a fort of them.....scooby is being introduced to dragons and batman and firemen.....

We got to take a walk on the beach, throw ice, spin on the ice, eat snow and get some fresh air!

Cuddling with Grandma

and Uncle Greg.... It went faster than I hoped, but it was worth every ounce of work involved.

video clips....

So I had to shorten the videos in order for them to upload (I guess they were too big or long....) anywho hopefully you get the idea....



Brady singing Frosty and some other antics on stage.....

Rudolph part one....

Rudoplph part two....

Don't let the amount of Sharpie on Brady's hand or the amount of time he licks his fingers deter you from eating some of our holiday cookies....

cooking show continued.....

December Details.....

Well we are in full Christmas mode over here.....we have been decking the halls EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT with our countdown of family activities that the kids have been really enjoying and getting excited to see what is in that envelope every day. On top of that we have had many other things keeping us in the Christmas spirit....and to think it is only December 14th...... I hope we can keep it up!

We enjoyed the lighting ceremony downtown......

Chestnuts.....I mean marshmallows roasting on an open fire.....

Santa and Brooke.


Brady literally passing out cold on the tile one step from the garage door, because we got home at 7:31 a minute after he normally waives the white flag.....this kid kills me.

Brooke got a chance to walk in the Santa Parade this year with her Daisy Troop!

She threw out candy and got to walk the banner.....

Brady had his Christmas musical and apparently shows his love for his Ashtyn with a nice pinch to the neck......

Brady and Griffy hanging backstage after the show....
He actually sang this year as well as paced the length of the stage, did a cartwheel off the bleachers during the song, untied Astyn's dress, hid in the back row ......but people he sang!!!Unfortunatly this site is giving me trouble on uploading videos so I will have to add later.

We've made cookies ....

Waiting in line for Santa...

Sometimes my job includes capturing an escape artist right before it's our turn with the man in red....

Yup one more year that I am in the Santa picture.....that is seven years running. Brady was able to whisper in my ear what he wanted in order for me to translate that to Santa......Absurd.

11 more days ....here we go.....

A new Tree-dition?

I have finally convinced my husband to add a THIRD Christmas tree to our decor...I know its a bit over the top but I just feel like I want to experience the season no matter what room we are in, and more often than not we are in our basement now a days and our other two trees have permanent residences elsewhere. So the "live" tree was the bait.......You see I have always had artificial and saw nothing wrong with it.......but Chris speaks of the smell, the needles, the fire hazards......so he bit. We went out to a tree farm grabbed a saw and picked up the smallest Charlie Brown tree we could find. I can see the tradition and the appeal. Brooke cut the tree and found out that the sawing is harder than it looks. Brady had found more appeal in riding in the car with the hatchback door open and bunging the bad guys. I was excited to tie it down on our roof and sing fa la la la la all the way home but the thing was so small Chris picked it up from end to end and it fit in our trunk......so much for the June Clever moment..... Maybe we will replace the articificals one by one, but I can only imagine the anxiety it would cause Mr. Vacuum to have three real trees leaving needles EVERYWHERE :)..so for now we have our first tiny real tree where we can feel the Christmas spirit in the basement.