Layla {heart} Austin

I {heart} christmas. I just do. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. This year was no exception!
 (we do wish we could have spent time with my family and the Garbini clan over the holidays, however!) .
Here's our Christmas in a nutshell...or should I say chestnut (roasted on an open fire)?

Christmas Eve: finished my christmas shopping (I will never shop on christmas eve again, what a nightmare!), met up with Santa's elves, dinner of home made soup, wrapped presents while watching christmas movies and eating lots of junkfood, opened christmas eve gifts of p.j.s and slippers, got a call from Santa (WOW!) and opened Santa's elves gifts & read and wrote "gifts" to Christ -all while wearing our ugly sweaters (a new Christmas tradition).

Every year Austin and I meet up with some of Santa's elves to get their gifts to the Overman family. This year they gave:

Jordan, from the "helpful" elves- a "high-tech" claw and a new arm (that plays paper, rock, scissors) since he still doesn't have full use of his left arm.

Lanae, from the "s-m-r-t" elves- a pair of reading glasses (because she's a nerd) and a love bug (because she full of love).

Alyse, from the elves that are "byu-fans"- some blue and white cheering gear and a bottle of silly string to spray her boyfriend that cheers for the U.

Jennica, from Santa's "playful" elves, a lot of silly toys--all animals (because she has a new obsession with farm and exotic animals, especially as pets--just ask Jen about her pet lama, zoey, REAL pet lama). Our all-time favorite christmas quote of 2009 came about when Jennica opened her gift from the elves-- "ohhh, I get to drink out of a monkey's head" (also notice the picture in which she is eating gum out of a sheep's bum...I told you she has a weird obsession, ha ha!).

Austin, from Santa's "hottest" elf who knows him well--a goofy, "I'm on a boat", t-shirt. And what's his ring-tone right now? ...I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat. Everybody look at me, 'cause I'm sailing on a boat (the edited version of course).

Malinda, from the "prettiest" elves, a crown and wand (because she is definitely the queen of Christmas).

Scott, from the elves who know how it feels to "grow old"- a depends diaper, a retirement fund (inflatable piggy bank) and a porta-potty.

Those elves sure are good- o' so good.

Christmas Day: Finished wrapping gifts @ 4 in the morn.  oh glorious sleep. Up @ 8:30 AM with Mr. puppy. Family was up around 10. Started opening presents around 11:30 and needless to say, after a couple of hours we had to take a break and have some brunch. (Thanks to good friends for bringing us home made breakfast casserole- you were a lifesaver as none of us had the energy to make breakfast at that point!). The rest of Christmas day was spent exchanging gifts, recuperating, napping, eating, lots o' laughter and Sherlock Holmes (fantastic movie!). We ended christmas day with our tradition of opening one last gift @ midnight.

I LOVE gift giving so my favorite part of christmas is watching people open their gifts, especially the gifts from me and Austin.

We got professional pictures taken from the lovely Amy Clark and gave Austin's parents a couple of framed pictures of the Overman kids for Christmas.

Some of my favorites:

Miss. Amy also took some pictures of me and the hubbs. Here are some more of my favs.

Sorry for the picture over-load (this is what happens when I get behind in my blogging) but as you can see we had a lot o' fun with these pictures- it was rainy and dreary outside but we had a grand time. Thanks Amy.