That Sneaky Santa

Note from Santa........check.

Note from Peeka.......check.

Farwell Peeka snow angel on the porch........check.

Make it look like the reindeer ate their food.......check. 

Ate Santa's rice crispy treats......check.

Cosmos not impressed with my shenanigans or stern lecture about staying out of the flour snow angel until Ryker and Kya see it in the morning.....check.

Fireplace door cracked open.....check.  Perfect........I can go to bed.  I learned something this Christmas that is going to be detrimental in the years to come.  Our house was not designed for sneaking around on Christmas Eve.  Every inch of the loft opens up to the downstairs fireplace with a birds eye view of any action.  All the kids have to do is walk out of their rooms to use the bathroom and I'm caught.  We were unsure if Seth was going to make it home for Christmas since he was crabbing and my Mom suggested that we do our Christmas a little later so he could be there.  My reply:  You can't stop Santa's sleigh!  Seth is a big boy. Ryker and Kya; not so big and they are expecting Christmas on Christmas!  Nice thought Mom, but you know me, I wait for no one!  Luckily Seth made it home the night before.  Good thing too because I made him sleep in Ryker's room with him to ensure that he would not come out.  I still snuck around in the pitch black with no lights on because I was worried he'd catch me.  When they're older, I'll probably be setting my alarm for 2am to do it well after they are sleeping. 

Christmas morning, I heard Ryker running around upstairs with this candy cane.  I had snuck it into his bed and he was so excited that Santa would do such a thing.  He ran down the hall to tell Kya, but she was already up and in my room.  He was a little alarmed that she was gone (did Santa take more than Peeka?), but made his way quickly downstairs to find us and tell us all about how he woke up to this candy cane and that there was one in Kya's room too.

Kya, not quite as pumped especially considering that she won't actually get to eat any of it.  I had to get them each one or Ryker would have wondered, plus I really like salt water taffy!

We fed Cosmos and checked out the reindeer food and discovered this fantastic snow angel left by Peeka. 

Back inside for the grand finale.

Ice cream cone ball shooters never go out of style!

Ryker told Santa (who happened to be a retired Police chief) that he wanted a Firetruck for Christmas.  Some friends of our, one of which is a police officer, figured he needed to explore both careers so they got him a this sweet car.  Ryker likes them both, but Kya is much more into this one because of the catchy "Bad Boys" tune.  Ryker likes to bring it in the car and play the siren and I have to pretend like I think it is a real police car pulling me over.  If I don't, even one time, he's annoyed with me.  Kya, she just likes to head bang in the back seat when Ryker plays the song.

Here's the firetruck he got from Santa.  It came with a helicopter, motorcycle, and boat too.  Sadly, it did not squirt real water like he wanted, but he was not too upset.

Ryker and I bought helicopters for Seth and Ryker's cousin Asa.  Seth took his out of the box and it didn't work.  We decided we better check Asa's before we gave it to him and it also didn't work.  I took them both back, but by this time Seth had an itch for a helicopter so he went and bought his own.  This one worked.  I guess you have to buy an "Air Hog" to get a quality copter these days.  Anyway, Ryker loves it and can actually fly it which surprised me.  He always sits by the fireplace when he flies it and finds it very amusing to fly it into the kitchen and try to shoot me with the darts when I'm not paying attention.

Our vaulted ceilings are perfect for it, but the cable lighting is a little tricky to get around sometimes.