Well, we didn't have to wake the kids up to start Christmas this year!
(They weren't up too early, but they certainly didn't sleep in as they have in years past)
We always start our day by opening Christmas stockings in mama and daddy's bed. This year we all donned our Christmas WOOT shirts for the occasion!
Books and snowballs (light up stuffed toys)...
Chocolate and scotch...
Lego Movie set and Tricky Dogs
Snoball fight!
Cards from grandparents, candy, movies, and slinkys...
Sad Face Jay because our stairs are too far apart for proper slinky deployment
"Santa's been here!"
Ralphie didn't know what kind of "Star Wars Rebels" to bring James, so he brought a giant Ezra figurine, which James seems pretty excited about
Cora asked Santa for a non-specific doll, so he brought an ice skating Elsa. She asked Ralphie for a "Santa Doll", so he brought her a little talking Santa figurine from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Santa brought James Skylanders, as requested
They thought there was a present for daddy hiding under the blankets (because they just KNEW it was a bike for daddy, since he's the only one of us who doesn't have one), but it turned out to be brand new, bigger bikes for them from Grambot and PawPaw (X Games for James and Hello Kitty for Cora). They were pretty happy about that discovery!
When she opened her pretend makeup kit from us she screamed "Yay! This is just like Addy has!" (She played a lot with cousin Addy's pretend makeup kit when we were visiting in August.) She has spent more time than I care to admit carefully applying makeup over and over again throughout the day... Not sure how we got such a girly girl, but she definitely is!
This book from Gramma came with a hand puppet monster to build and rebuild
Enjoying his tiny Teen Titans figurines
The Belle dress from her Auntie Taryn and Uncle Davey was a huge hit!
A couple more of his favorite gifts: The Lego Movie videogame from Gramma and a marble maze race set from Auntie Taryn and Uncle Davey
Playing Santa and handing out gifts (after James got tired of doing it)
Lego Legends of Chima building set and game from Uncle Jamie
Getting ready to open their "big" gift from us...
James opened his Kindle Fire and immediately asked to play Minecraft... Now we just need to get them registered and set up with some kid friendly aps and books! And await the arrival of the cases we bought for them that were backordered...
More makeup application for Cora, marble racing for James
Do you want to eat a snowman?
We set out various powdered donuts and toothpicks so the kids could create snowmen and eat their favorite type of donut for breakfast. Cora quickly dumped ALL the snowballs on her plate and James built one tiny snowman then asked me if it was ok to just eat the donuts...
Buster got a shiny new leash to match his collar!
The rest of the day was spent playing with new toys...
...and playing videogames, of course!
Merry Christmas all!
