Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas morning started bright (and too early) in my opinion...but I guess it was kind of my fault. The boys asked and worried and fussed all week about how early we would let them get up on Christmas morning. After much negotiation, we decided that 6:45 was the earliest that we would start the festivities. Early, yes, but not crazy early in our house. Well I started hearing noises downstairs around 6:30. Eric and I couldn't go back to sleep so I went down stairs to tell the kids they could come up. Turns out that only Mason was awake. But once I was already down there, I figured we might as well get the gang up. Sadie & Colby popped right up. Getting Renae out of bed was another matter. She is not a morning person! If I had to do it all over again, I would have told Mason to play his DS and I would have gone back to bed. Oh well.
 

This is me supporting Renae as I helped her walk into the room.

She was really out of it for awhile.

Sadie is showing us her new cowgirl boots...a surprise from Santa!

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Mason got "teenager stuff" like computer games, slippers, and DS accessories

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Renae got lots of Harry Potter (games, books, chocolate frog molds, and a small Lego set)

 

But one of my favorite things this year, is that each of the kids drew the name of another kid in the family (which we've done before) and then they had to make or "re-gift" something that they really cared about. Mason was so excited as he decided to whittle a Harry Potter wand for Renae. He put a lot of thought and effort into it and she really appreciated that.

 

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Colby got some fun stuff including a computer game, a small Lego set, a headlamp....

and some real binoculars. He loves them all.

 

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Okay, this isn't going to be FAIR or EVEN...but I had to put in a bunch of pictures of Sadie opening her gifts because she gets SO incredibly excited with each one. Each thing is like "the best thing ever" in her mind. Bless her heart. Her expressions just crack me up. I had to share a few of them.

This is her face after she opened her Mommy & Me Penguin Pet Shop. She had been asking for this for months and I had to just about go to the ends of the earth to find it. (Well just ebay...but it wasn't Walmart or Amazon...so that was effort!)

But the funny thing is, she has this same level of excitement for a pack of gum.

Yep, she got her OWN gum in her stocking and she was thrilled.

And this was a hand-me-down dragon that Colby gave her. She had been coveting it for months (maybe years) and he wrapped it up and gave it to her for her own.

Another ecstatic face. Silly Sadie!

 

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Ok, so no pictures of this, but I have to insert this story. We got all the kids a little LED reading light to clip on their beds. They loved them! It has made them all want to get in bed early so they can read every night. Awesome. Best gift ever!!! But sadly, it is only 2 weeks after Christmas and they are all either dead or in some state of malfunction. One flashes like a strobe light. One won't turn off. One won't turn on. And the other one will only stay on for a short time before it turns itself off. Yes, they were cheap lights...so I guess you get what you pay for...but I still expect things (even inexpensive things) to last more than 10 days. Don't you? I am currently in "dispute" with my seller on Amazon. We'll see how that turns out. But it is really sad that something they all loved so much and had such good side effects (encouraging reading and an earlier bedtime) turned out to be junk. We are looking into other options for future reading lights. If you have any suggestions...I welcome them.

 

Now back to our story...

 

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 Eric and I got a few gifts too. Here are our favorites:

Eric got a much needed new watch

I got my first ever SEWING machine! Now I just have to figure out how to sew.

 

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The rest of our Christmas Day was heavenly. We had no where to go and no one coming over.

We stayed in our pajamas all day and did whatever our hearts desired.

Sadie dressed up in her new jaguar costume & played with all her toys.

Gotta love her serious animal face. She really gets into character.

Colby tried on all his outdoor gear and played Survivor Man.

He even built a blanket tent in the guest room and slept in it that night.

 

Mason played his new DS games...wearing his new headphones.

 

Eric did puzzles and played computer games with the boys.

 

And Renae and I read our hearts out. We were both reading a series of short stories called The Princess Tales. We passed the books back and forth to each other all day.

It was PERFECT.

 

Yep, my house looked like this. But we sure had a nice, relaxing day!