Christmas.Day 2008

We told the girls on Christmas Eve that they needed to wait for us to come get them in the morning before they could see if Santa came. (what cruel parents...) Anyhow, my mom knocked on our door at 8:30am to tell us that Madeline had been patiently waiting in her bed for us to come and get her. What a sweetheart! And we got to sleep in. Double sweetheart! I love Christmas, but these days, I love my sleep too! So we got up and then made the girls wait even longer so we could get the video recorder ready. Oh, the torture. When we finally let them go into the family room, Madeline shouted and Lauren just stood there and stared at everything. I think she was thouroughly confused as to why we were getting so many presents that day. She quickly fell into the routine and was very excited to be opening presents. We let the kids do their opening and then off they went to play with their new toys. Then the adults were able to open our presents and enjoy our own Christmas.

After finishing around 11am, we started breakfast which consisted of Crepes with fresh strawberries and powdered sugar (thanks Jilene), monkey bread (thanks Christian for getting up at 5 am to put an extra 5 lbs on me) deliciouso bacon and 'lil smokies (thanks Matt), fabulous canned orange juice (thanks Albertsons) and lots of other goodies throughout the day. Oh were we full by the end of the night!

The girls did Uncle Christian and Grampa's hair and they were such good sports about it. Grampa even left it in most of the day. We decorated a gingerbread house and the girls ate more candy than they put on the house. Then the kids went to bed and we played hours and hours of "Apples to Apples." What a fun day!

All in all it was a great Christmas and now we can look forward to next year!

Ariel in all her glory

Grammie showing Lauren how to play her new princess games

Grampa enjoying a little Mitchell time while opening presents

Mitchell not sure what is going on

The princesses and their thrones (thanks Grammie and Grampa)

Beautiful Grampa

Christian was such a good sport

Didn't he look beautiful when he was done?

So intense

Goofy girls and grampa

Sweet kids....Merry Christmas!