Monday, January 6, 2014

Christmas Day

I'm so bad about taking pictures on Christmas day. I didn't even get a family picture of us. I'd like to do better about getting a variety of pictures of our day, but I also don't want to be behind a camera the whole day either. I'll have to work on finding that balance.

I actually set my alarm to get up before the boys, Greg swears I'm the only person who gets up before their kids on Christmas. But, I wanted to put in my contacts, brush my teeth, and just be ready for when they woke up. It took me about 10 minutes and then I realized that 5:30 is too early to be up and I went back to bed until Evan woke up. When he got up, I went upstairs and got him and Carter and they came down to open their stockings and see the stuff Santa brought.

We have our tree in their playroom which has a door that shuts, so we had that shut and filled with the stuff we got the boys. We had their little tree set up in our living room, which is where the fireplace is, so we had the stockings and few things from Santa in there. My plan was for the boys to come down and see the Santa stuff, then we all eat breakfast and then go into the playroom with the Christmas tree since we had some unwrapped toys set up in there. My plan worked out just like I hoped.

The boys got several little things in their stockings, glow sticks, crowns (they like to pretend they're kings) Pez (Evan's favorite) a fishing game, trains, Planes, etc.

I loved this fishing game as a kid and wanted to get the boys one for Christmas. I was going to get a big one, but Target had mini ones in their stocking stuffer section that I thought would be perfect.

The boys firehouse was the "big" thing this year. I saw it on Instagram last Christmas and knew that was what I was getting the boys. I put it on my Amazon wishlist and then waited to see if it went on sale for Black Friday, the price actually skyrocketed right after Thanksgiving and sold out several places. I was lucky and ended up finding it on Costco's website for the same price I was hoping to pay for it.

The boys love their train set, that was the other 'big' thing that we got them. I got it on Zulily several months ago and have been saving it for either their birthday or Christmas.

The boys didn't even want to open their presents, they just wanted to play. We knew that opening presents was going to be a slower process this year since they're at such a fun age where they want to stop and play with everything.



The first present the boys opened was one that Carter had been eyeing since I put it under the tree. It was probably the biggest one in size and he knew immediately that it was the first one he wanted to open.

Lincoln Logs from Aunt Brandi!!

We had to open it and set up the train track before they'd open anything else. :)

The boys did so good about opening the presents together. There were a few things that they got two of and those we let them open at the same time. But, everything else, they opened together. I'm not sure how we'll do it next year, but it worked great for this year.

Evan played with this matching game (also from Aunt Brandi) for awhile before moving on to the next present.

The boys needed new shoes, so we ordered them online. It was so close to Christmas and they get so excited about new shoes, I decided to wrap them up and let them open them.

They got some things for their play kitchen, like a Melissa and Doug pizza.

Some appliances like a coffee pot and toaster that they love using to cook things for us.


After the boys opened all their presents, we all got ready and drove out to my parents house. The boys opened their presents and then we had a big meal and half of us took naps. After naps, we had dessert and came home. This is the only picture I got at my parents house, Greg and the boys had matching shirts and I didn't even get a picture of the 3 of them together.

This has definitely been the best Christmas with the boys. I almost feel like it was their "first" Christmas since it was the first year they got all of it. They talked about it being Jesus's birthday, they loved looking at lights, they liked the decorations, the presents, Santa, Dennis, Christmas music, etc. I definitely want to concentrate for the reason for the season a little more next year, get more pictures on Christmas (of us and family) and do a little less gifts. I think they'll be able to be more involved in gift giving next year, I'm excited to pick a kid from the angel tree for them to buy for, and I think we'll try and do crafty, homemade gifts for family. We'll definitely have Dennis back next year, I'll do it until the boys are too old for it. I'd like to go to an early Christmas eve church service. I think the boys will be old enough to sit through it next year (we'll see) I just wanted to blog these thoughts for when I look back at this later this year, I'll remember what I wanted to do differently.

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