Christmas Morning

Our Christmas day this year was absolutely wonderful! The kids were all delightfully excited about their gifts, and we had some good friends over for Christmas dinner that night, which was also really fun. When the kids woke up first thing in the morning, Maddox did not appreciate having to WAIT to come downstairs though, because he follows his stomach to the kitchen first thing every morning, and he didn't want to wait for pictures or anything else! He just wanted to get downstairs and eat -- Christmas or not! Once he got downstairs and saw the stockings and gifts from Santa though, he was pacified for awhile playing with his new train set, and he even seemed to forget about breakfast for a bit (but not too long!). When he started smelling the sticky-buns cooking, he was first in line at the table, because apparently his stomach trumps everything else. I guess we now know that he'd rather eat than open presents (I wish I'd known that a few weeks before, when he opened them the FIRST time)!

After breakfast we opened presents at a pretty leisurely pace, emphasizing what presents were from who, which was really nice and it kept the unwrapping from getting too chaotic. There was even quite a shock that Santa brought all three kids presents (even Kennedy, which surprised ALL of us, especially McKinley). This Christmas will probably be remembered overall as the Beatles Rock Band/tons of books Christmas, since that was the majority of the presents, which suited Milt and I just fine. We got wonderful gifts from everyone, which made us feel much too spoiled because our families are always too generous! Thank you everyone for the gifts and the love sent!

But our favorite part of the day was when when we got to Skype our parents' houses out west to watch some present opening, which we all really really loved! It was so nice to get to see everyone sitting around in pajamas, even if we're so far away (and it was a little fuzzy). It made it a lot easier being so far from family getting to actually see them all, even if it wasn't for long. Technology really can be a wonderful thing!

Here is a picture of the kids all stopping to read some of their new books they had just opened (rather than just dive into the pile of unwrapped presents, which was nice), and then a couple of pictures of when Milt got Beatles Rock Band (I don't know who was more excited, Milt or McKinley!) We have been playing it all together the last week, and it has been so much fun! We'll post pictures of the family "rock-banding" soon.

McKinley got an MP3 Video player from Santa, which she was VERY excited about (even if I did hear her wondering out loud if maybe Santa couldn't hear very well, since she told him she wanted a PINK one, and the one she got is black). But the best part of the morning was seeing McKinley get almost as excited about the gifts she bought for Maddox and Kennedy as she was about her own presents. She's really growing up!

Kennedy told Santa that she wanted a microphone, but once she saw the cute pink one he brought, it took her a little while to really warm up to it. Maybe she didn't want a toy one? But she loved all her gifts, most especially the two princess nightgowns she got (which she then wore for the next 3 days straight). I just hope she's still that excited to get pajamas as gifts when she's 15!

And Maddox just loves all boy toys, so he was very excited at all the cars, trains, dinosaurs, and Star Wars stuff that he now has to roar at his sisters with. It's fun to see how easily excited he gets about little things!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too! Thank you everyone again for the gifts, and we really miss all of you far-away family and friends...come visit soon!