The Smith Family: 2012

We got to go visit Ayden's birthmom this week! She was visiting her family for Christmas in Central Cali from Washington, so we were excited to be able to meet up with her and visit since we hadn't seen her since last Christmas!!

We love Crystal! She was the first birthmom that we got to experience all this adoption stuff with!! She was always like our little sister and we learned so much about the whole adoption process and birthmoms from her! Like all of our birthmoms, we are so grateful for her and we love getting to meet up with her every year!!

I feel like the older the kids get, the more and more I am seeing resemblances in their look!! Ayden and Crystal definitely have the same chin and the same nose....but not sure how Ayden got away with blonde hair instead of red! HA!

It is so cute to see each of them interacting with their birthmoms! I love this picture.....Adyen is telling stories and she is taking in each and every word......LOVE!!! :)

Crystal's mom and her aunt came with to lunch.....

Ayden is a lucky boy and gets spoiled by Crystal! She always gets him the best gifts and was so sweet to get Zoey some fun stuff too!! He got the cute new hat he is wearing, a new volcom shirt and a belt....and also the glow in the dark penny board that he was really sad he didn't get for Christmas!! We had been talking about how he was gonna save up his money and be able to buy himself one before we even met up with her! :) What a lucky little skater boy......got to see his birth mom AND got the Christmas gift he was bummed he hadn't gotten yet!!! :)

Christmas Eve at our house! We loved having it here and wish we could every year! It was so nice to not have to travel anywhere and my parents made it super easy on us by providing (and cooking) every piece of food we ate!! The kids had a blast with their cousins, as always! There were more than enough gifts to go around for everyone! It was a great day!!

One of the favorite parts of Christmas is passing out all the presents! I remember doing this as a kid and loving it and now all 6 of the kids helped in one way or another! They sorted and made piles for all 12 people!

My nephews, Cooper....

Crew....

Carter....

Even Maddix tried to get in on the action and help out....

He was obsessed with the bows on the presents.....

obsessed.....

Presents lined the hallway in the living room and entry way.....

Maddix put new meaning to the term, "tinsel toes"....

Piles.....

....piles......

.....piles EVERYWHERE.....

This year we decided to let the kids all open their gifts early in the day instead of waiting til the evening! It worked out perfectly because we didn't have to hear, "is it time to open presents" 300 times from each kid all day long! And then the kids opened their gifts and had all of their presents to play with in the evening after dinner, which allowed for the adults to open their presents in peace and quiet while the kids were playing! It was PERFECT!!!

We start from youngest to oldest and kids open gifts ONE AT A TIME! It takes a long time and drags it out, but that is exactly how I love it!! Christmas is over too fast as it is, so it's nice to let the opening of presents take a long time!! And everyone gets to see what everyone else got!

Maddix's 1st gift was a basketball hoop from Grammy & Grandpa! He picked up the ball and went in for a two handed dunk right away......with a growl to go along with it!!! HA! It was like it just came completely natural to him what to do with the ball since he had never played with anything like it before!! He is a natural!! :)

And then he would clap for himself.....

Zoey got the one and only thing that she had asked for....a Justin Bieber microphone!! Before Christmas, she said that it was all she wanted and if she got it, she would be so happy and if not, she would be so sad! Glad she was happy!! :)

Both boys got their own footballs.....I can't wait til they are old enough to play catch together! :)

Boys and their toys.....

You can never go wrong with a new baby doll for the little mommy in our family!!

She handed her baby over to Cooper and kept calling him "Uncle Cooper".....

Cooper got a Red Ryder BB Gun from Grandpa......hopefully he doesn't shoot his eye out!!

Cutest little apron for Zoey.....

Dream lights for everyone.....the kids love these and have been snuggling with them every night! I think they're pretty cute too and I decided I want one for myself!! :)

Zoey got her very own camera.....now she can be just like Mommy!! :)

Crew got one too....they were so cute checking them out....

Tap shoes and ballet slippers for the little dancing queen.....just in time for her upcoming dance class.....

After all the kids were done opening up gifts, there was a knock and a "ho ho ho" at the door.....

Well, hello Santa!!!

Maddix wasn't so sure about Santa! And since we didn't get a chance to visit Santa in the mall this year, this was the 1st time he had seen Santa in person!! Not so much a fan.....

Santa and all 6 cousins.....

Hahahaha......

Santa was on his way and Grammy had to sneak in a kiss!! Uh oh.....we were singing, "I saw Grammy kissing Santa Claus.....underneath the mistletoe last night....."!!!

Santa brought one more gift for each of the kids.....and they were instructed to open them all at the same time!!!

It was Green Bay Packers (Grandpa's favorite team) gear for all 6 kids!!!

Zoey got a pink night gown....

And all the boys got jerseys......

Grandpa and all his little Green Bay Packers......

Maddix with a mustache......hahahaha......

Grandpa got everyone in a huddle and planned a play.....

Hike.....

I think he might be the cutest Green Bay Packer I have ever seen.....

Time for dinner.....Grandpa's clam chowder and ham sandwiches....

Time for the adults to open gifts.....the kids had disappeared upstairs to play....ahhh.....it was so nice and quiet and we really got to relax and enjoy the moment!!

Cara & Joe....

My cute parents.....might be one of the cutest pics I've seen of them lately.....

Jeremiah and I.....

At the end of opening, the kids started coming around again.....Ayden and Zoey gave Jeremiah their presents.....

It was the perfect Christmas Eve! After all the cousins left, under the tree was empty again and all of Santa's elves started working and getting ready for Christmas morning!!!

The living room.....the kids could see this from the upstairs when they came out of their bedrooms, so Santa must have wanted to hide the unwrapped gifts in the family room!!!

The "big" gifts in the family room.....a pink bike for Zoey, a snowboard for Ayden and a quad for Maddix.....

Christmas morning, we locked the gate at the top of the stairs and told the kids that the alarm would go off if they tried to open it. It worked!!! They were so patient to wait until Maddix woke up and Mommy was ready!! :)

"Let us out!!! Let us out!!!!"

We "turned off the alarm" and allowed them to come down....Grammy and Grandpa were waiting in the living room to watch them open their gifts!

Stocking first.....

Zoey was so sweet and excited to give Jeremiah and I our stockings because she made us gifts and put them inside!! :)

Perhaps the most exciting news on Christmas morning was that our elves, Rudy and Cupid, had come back one more time from the North Pole since things were so crazy on Christmas Eve and Ayden and Zoey didn't "officially" get to say goodbye to them til next year!! They were so excited to see them back and to know that they could touch them again!! :)

Ayden was more interested in holding Rudy than he was in opening his presents....

All 3 kids got LOTS of fun gifts....

The aftermath of Christmas morning in the living room.....

The kids thought everything was over....and then we told them to go check if the fireplace was open to see if Santa came through the chimney.....

I loved all 3 of their faces when they came around the corner and saw what Santa left by our little tree in the family room.....

After seeing this video, I realize how absolutely annoying I am with my camera!! HAHA!! My poor kids!! No wonder they get sick of smiling for my camera....it's like I'm the paparazzi or something.....so many flashes!! LOL!!

Ayden helped Maddix onto his quad and showed him how it worked....

It didn't take him long to figure it out and he was off.....

Grammy was showing Zoey her new bike, but in typical Zoey fashion, she took a while to warm up to it!!

Ayden was super excited about his new snowboard!!!

We went outside so everyone could try out their new stuff in the front yard....

It didn't take long for Zoey to fall in love with her bike....thank goodness!!!

Since Ayden obviously couldn't use his snowboard until we go to the snow, he had fun with the RC monster truck he got from Aunt Pam & Uncle John.....and apparently Rudy enjoyed a ride on the back of it!! :)

Maddix LOVES his quad!!! :)

And he is a daredevil on it too!!! He stands up like this and then tries to push the button!! Ahhhhh!!!! Jeremiah and I said we need to get him a helmet!! :)

One last pic of my 3 little loves in their Christmas 2012 jammies.....Ayden was sick, so this was the best we could get!! :-/

And our only family pic on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.....it was a pathetic one..... :(

We rushed over to Jeremiah's parents house after opening gifts. We decided that next year, we will beg to have Christmas day at our house with his family! :) It's so sad to have the kids open everything and then have to rush off and leave it all behind!

But they were exhausted from the morning and already needed a nap....they all 3 fell asleep on the drive over to Grandma & Grandpa's house.....

As soon as we got there, the kids were excited for Christmas Round 3!!! Stockings first!!

Maddix once again was obsessed with everything OTHER than his presents....he kept pulling ornaments off the tree....I think he thought these were little mini basketballs!! :)

It was a small Christmas this year at the Smith house! Half of Jeremiah's siblings stayed in Utah, so it was just his parents, our family and his brother Kirt and his wife, Stephanie. Every year, Jeremiah's mom doesn't write tags on the presents....she has some type of code that has something to do with the wrapping paper design. Everyone usually spends a while figuring it out....I think this year they didn't try too hard and she ended up giving lots of clues! :) Here are these 4 trying to figure it out....

Ayden got a bottle of super hero cologne from Uncle Kirt & Aunt Stephanie!! He was so excited and sleeps with it on his bed and sprays it on him every day!! :)

We love these little TY beanie baby furry things with big eyes! We have a couple and have been joking that we want the whole set....they are really cute!! :) Grandma Brenda got us ALMOST the whole set....each of the kids got 3 new ones, so we ended Christmas day with 9 more total!! WOOHOO!! I think I was just as excited as the kids....they really are so cute and furry!!

The kids were lucky to each get new Android tablets from Grandma & Grandpa! Ever since Jeremiah and I got new phones a few months ago, they have been playing games on our old phones....so we knew they would be super excited about these!!! :)

I got a new Garmin watch...yay! Most everything that I asked for this year had to do with exercising....that's pretty pathetic, right?!?! HA! I am excited to finally start logging all the running I have been doing! :)

Maddix was being a crazy baby with Aunt Stephanie....

It wouldn't be a Smith family Christmas without new bike gear and clothing for almost everyone!! :) Zoey got a cute new jersey and shorts....

Maddix got more balls.....yay for balls!!!! :)

Everyone was busy opening.....the Smith family opens everything at once....so it's a lot less dragged out and a lot quicker than the route my family goes, but I was sad to miss out on what everyone else opened! :(

New bike gloves for Jeremiah!!

As soon as the kids opened their tablets, they disappeared behind the tree for a while playing all the new games that Grandma Brenda uploaded for them!

Maddix just needed an orange to entertain himself.....he was biting off the orange peel all day!!

After presents, we ate the most yummiest quiche for brunch....then Kirt & Stephanie had to head out to her family, so it was just Jeremiah's parents and us for the rest of the day! We sat around and just relaxed all day and had a yummy steak dinner before heading home! It was a wonderful Christmas day!!!

After we got home and got the kids in bed, it was about 8 pm and I realized what a DISASTER the house was and I couldn't stand it one more second!!! So just like I have in the past 4 or 5 years, I started taking decorations down!! Ugh....I actually felt a little bit bad for it to be over this year....I could've handled another week or 2 of Christmas....it always seems to go too fast!! But since the cleaning lady was coming 2 days later, I knew that if I didn't take it all down that it would've been worthless to have the house cleaned cuz I would've made a mess when taking the decorations down anyway!! So I went to town and by 11 pm, I had the decorations all back in their bins, the ornaments put away, the tree disassembled, the snow village taken apart and put away, and all the Christmas books back in their bin......it was final!! I did it all that night and left the cleaning and picking up for the next day!! It was a good feeling to have it all done, but the house felt so empty all of a sudden....I felt like we had just moved in again!!!

This is what it looked like during the tornado.....and yes, that is Jeremiah on the computer....the putting up and taking down decorations is all me....at least he puts up the outside lights (which is why those will probably be up well into January and until we receive a letter from the HOA to take them down or pay a fine! HA!)!!

When I woke up the next morning and came downstairs and saw the empty, but dirty living room, it made me feel like we were in a house that just got robbed!! It looked ransacked!! HA!

But here we are 5 days later and I am so glad to have my decorations down and have a clean house and we are ready to welcome January!!! We did leave all the Christmas cards up....not ready to take them down yet, but I am glad that it is the last sign of Christmas left in this house!! Oh yeah....that and all the new clutter of toys and gifts around here too!!!

What a wonderful Christmas we had this year!! Our kids are at the perfect age and it is always so much fun to have all of our families around! We are so so very blessed!!! :)