Santa came. I promise you...

Hello Friends!  I've taken a few days to recover, catch up on some scrappy commitments and build flat packs! LOL!  Yep.  I'm a multitasking machine!  woo hoooooOooo.... *oh my!*

Leading up to, during and after Christmas has been car-razy!  hee hee.  But I didn't really expect any different. We were hosting Christmas dinner this year and sadly...because I was in the kitchen for most of the evening, I missed out on taking photos.  A lot of photos.  :(

So I'll share the few I have from the day, bright and early Christmas morning!

{2011}

Somehow, I manage to get this traditional "posed" photo every year.  And I am so glad too, as it is one of my favourite things to look back on and compare as the years fly by...

{2010}

{2009}

{2008}

(minus Cameron of course!)

And I can go on and on right back to the year 2000 when Tahlia celebrated her first Christmas.  Some things will never change.  And I like this little tradition!  Of course the other non-changing element of Christmas was the early morning wake-up!  But this year we put a challenge out there to the kids!  Bwahahaha!

2011's Christmas morning story went like this....  It was the night before Christmas.... Ooops! Sorry, that's from somewhere else... :D

But it did start out on Christmas eve.  Mark challenge the kids to stay in their bedrooms until we got up to bring them down to the tree.  Yep.  I know what you're thinking.  Bad parenting!!!  That will NEVER work! hahaha!  But as an added incentive, rules were made to make the challenge fair.  We, as the parents, promised to come and get them at 6am.  That was deemed a reasonable time by all.  But, if any child strayed out of the bedroom before we came and got them, they would open their gifts last.  HAHA!  There was an obvious loophole.  What if they ALL came out?  Well, we, as the said parents, told them, they'd have to have breakfast first before any gifts were opened!!! Could they (or more accurately, would they) do it?

Just after 4am, we heard movement.  Okay, I thought... Here we go... Am I going to be mean enough on Christmas morning and force cereal down my children's throats when they will be clearly obsessed with what is in the other room?  I was hoping not.  :)  So Mark got up to investigate.  Here they were, sitting patiently at their bedroom doors not daring to go out any further into the hallway, and just bursting with excitement!!!  Liam and Ethan in one doorway.  Tahlia and our niece Simone in the adjoining bedroom doorway.  All lined up at 4AM!!!  Sheesh!!  LOL!

So we caved.  Weeeelllll...... Technically we actually got them and brought them down to the Christmas tree.  (That's what I'm claiming anyway!)  And just like that... chaos rang out! LOL! 

The kids kindly posed for the above photos and then wrapping paper was strewn across the atmosphere!  So yes.  Santa did come to our house.  And he was most welcome...x

ps - If you were wondering... Yes.  We do have daylight here just after 4am.  And it makes it very hard for kids to stay in bed! LOL!!