HOLDER HAPPENINGS: Merry Christmas!!

Well, Christmas has come and gone and what a Christmas we had here at the Holder household! It all started with Christmas Eve. We were sitting around watching "It's a Wonderful Life" when the power went off. It came back on a minute later. An hour later the power went off again, but this time it didn't come back on like it did earlier. Chris called the power company and the recording said the estimated time for the power to be restored was 11:00 that night! So we put the kids to bed. It came back on an hour earlier than expected.

I made sure I got up bright an early this morning because yesterday Sean got up before 7:00 and helped himself to some "breakfast". His breakfast consisted of several packets of gummy fruit snacks! When I heard him out there I got up and realized it was just Sean up and about. I asked him where everyone was and he answered "They seeping." So, I wanted to make sure I was out there before he got up.

I headed to the kitchen to start breakfast and found my first "present". Travis (our dog) had pooped on the kitchen floor! I was not a happy camper. So instead of starting breakfast I cleaned my kitchen floor.

Chris came out and started breakfast (cinnamon rolls) for me while the kids were starting to straggle out to the living room. I wanted to make sure I got a good picture of Sean's reaction to his tool bench, so I was sitting in the living room with my camera in hand ready to capture the moment. Here is a picture of our sad little tree and the tool bench:

Of course this was the morning Sean didn't want to get out of bed. So the rest of the kids opened one gift each while we waited for breakfast and for Sean to decide to come out and join us. Chris mentioned to me that he put the cinnamon rolls on two sheets instead of one and they were in the oven side by side. I told him he might want to keep an eye on them then. For some reason when you put two cookie sheets side by side in our oven the stuff burns. The words were still lingering in the air when the smoke detectors went off! All of our detectors are wired together, so every one of them were blaring. We all raced around opening windows and doors. The dog (who is afraid of loud noises) made a break for it and ran out the front door.

So during the chaos of alarms sounding, kids running after the dog and smoke filling the house, Sean decides that is the time to come out of his room and play with his tool bench! I totally missed my photo op of his reaction. He did like it though.

The kids all seemed to love their gifts. I wish I had video taped the entire gift opening because their reactions were so funny. It wasn't their reactions to their gifts, it was their reaction to everyone else's gifts that was funny. When Hannah opened the first High School Musical DVD, she was happy, but when she opened second one she squealed and Austin looked over at her and said "Oh great! What is it now?" When Matthew was jumping up and down when he opened his Nerf dart guns all of them moaned in unison "Oh man!" Austin got a remote control spy car and Rebeckah was quick to tell him if that thing goes in her room she will break it! I did video tape Hannah opening her digital camera and Rebeckah opening the family gift of Guitar Hero. Here are their reactions:

Here are a few pictures from this morning: