And so this was Christmas.

This post is long overdue- so sorry. Well here is the proof that Santa arrived at our house on Christmas Eve. Jessica left a surprise wrapped gift for Santa. The surprise was on Santa because it was a kit to make an ornament. Well Santa was nice enough to take the time to create the ornament and leave it behind for us to put on our tree.

I tiptoed down and took these pictures after Santa left. Here is Jessica's haul- she chose to use the Hogwarts Stocking this year.

Here is Justin's haul...
Marc and I had stockings too but they weren't overflowing so no pics here. Here is a shot of the tree as well as some of the gifts that were to both of them.

One last shot before I headed to bed.
Jessica was very excited for Xmas this year- the days leading up you could just feel how excited she was getting. She ended up spiking a fever on Christmas Eve and mostly I think it was just her body not able to handle the overload. She was in our room 3x during the night because she couldn't sleep. At 5:30am she begged to be allowed to stay awake- nope!

Now in our house, as was the case for both of us growing up, you are allowed to go downstairs in the morning on your own and look at and enjoy your stockings. As a child the rule was my sister and I could go down at 6am but we weren't allowed to wake up my mom until 8am. There are always many different activities and things in the stockings to keep you busy for those 2 hours. Then presents are not opened until after breakfast has been eaten. In the past I have joined the kids for the stocking reveal and listened to their squeals of joy. This year I told them they couldn't go down until 7am. So they came in to wake me up. I told them they could go downstairs. Justin asked if they could open up the gifts. I told him they could open their stocking presents. So Justin asked again, "what about my nerf guns? those are next to the stocking can I open those?". At that point it became clear they had already ventured downstairs and I had missed the squeals of joy- so.... I rolled back over and went back to sleep. At 8am Jessica came up and asked me to PLEASE come down and open my stocking- so I did. And I found THE AFTERMATH- that horrible situation that only continued to grow throughout Christmas day. The situation that forced Marc to proclaim half way through the day that we were doing things differently next year and they would only be allowed to open half their gifts in the morning and the other half late in the day. Yeah we will see how that pans out. Here is the first shot of the aftermath- I tried to avoid taking too many.

The kids were still very into playing with their Santa toys and not that interested in Breakfast. But poor Marc had been looking at this cake all night- so he dug in! Yup, this is breakfast on Xmas. Justin doesn't really like cake so he wants to know why we can't have brownies for breakfast on Xmas- so look for a new addition next year.
They finally ate something and we began to open up the gifts. Justin trying on the coon hat he got!

Jessica taking a break in the present opening to load up her new notebook with some Pokemon cards.
Justin decided that was a good plan so he did too.

Once all the gifts were opened we had to try them out. Here is the gift that Justin got from the Bordens. He was throwing these balls at the velcro vest- Marc was nervous about Justin's aim. As soon as the balls hit the floor Buddy took off after them.
Justin playing with his new wall driving car from Aunt Kathy- the two story walls are so cool with this toy!
I took out my new flash accessory- the Gary Fong Lightsphere- and took a couple of pictures.
And then we showed off our new jammies!
It was a very fun and relaxing day. THE AFTERMATH took at least a week to banish and that felt good as well.

Yankee Candle

With two full weeks ahead of vacation ahead of us I decided to take the kids to Yankee Candle for the day. Justin has never been there and it had been a long time since Jessica went. So we walked in and went into the room with all the votive candles. We smelled them and made these faces....
Then we played around on the fake car.
And in the fake pirate ship.


Then my kids, well acted like my kids, they found the stuffed animals and settled into a lengthy imaginary game monopolizing the entire couch and most of the reading area until I shooed them away after 20 minutes or so.
We even made our own jar candles.
The big news of the day was Justin's first loose tooth. He had first noticed it the day before- I think he actually thought he would get into trouble when he told me. By the next day it was really loose and he was getting all bummed out that he couldn't only eat certain food and handed half his lunch over to Jessica. He kept fiddling with it the whole time at Yankee Candle. Not sure you can tell but here is a "before" picture. It is on the bottom.

The whole way home he was talking about having Macaroni and Cheese because that was the only food he could eat. So he sat down at the counter with his bowl of M&C and took a big bite, and then he burst into tears and spit out the bite and it was covered with blood. [Not sure what happened but I think he might have bitten down on the spoon.] At this point I realized I could just yank that thing out and that is what I did. It took him awhile to calm down and I think I took this pic before he had mellowed out.

He was quite happy to eat the entire bowl of M&C after the tooth came out. He was excited by the $1 and the DVD Santa Buddies that he got (since in our house you get a DVD with your first tooth- don't ask).

Hanna Family visit

The weekend before Christmas Aunt Sheri, Grandma and Grandpa came up for a visit. Since we did not make it to VA for Christmas this year they wanted to come up and personally deliver their present to the kids- a Wii! The kids (and I) have wanted a Wii for a long time, but truly I think they had given up wishing for one. Jessica even told Justin not to bother putting it on his list this year. Well they were so excited and loved playing with everyone. It was a total lifesaver as it arrived at the very beginning of their 2 week school vacation. I didn't really take too many pictures.

Here is one of Howard and Marc killing Justin's DS. Ok, truth be told it had died and they were trying to revive it, unfortunately unsuccessfully.

Grandmommy came up for dinner on Saturday afternoon and brought the kids their presents. Here is Justin and Sheri enjoying his new sleeping bag.

Here is video of Sheri and Marc trying out the Wii the night before it was officially given to the kids. Jessica almost busted them playing the night before- they were a little too excited to set it up that they didn't wait until both kids were asleep before they began the fun.



Here are the kids playing Tennis with Grandma and Grandpa.



We love the Wii! It is so fun for all of us. Many a night I find Marc working on his bowling score or MarioKart medals. Yeah Wii!

Pre Christmas fun

The week before Christmas I took the kids to Bright Nights. They love going- me, I don't see the appeal, but I enjoy taking them every year. We go on a weeknight, it is cheaper, the kids get into their jammies and we head out. This is the Santa they prefer over all the other ones out there. Don't get me wrong Justin will chat up every Santa he passes but they prefer this one. I decided to actually buy the picture with Santa- haven't done that in years, but I wanted to remember when they did this every year.

After Forest Park we headed to the Breen Family Christmas house. I LOVE going here at Christmas it makes me so happy. They have a huge light display and if you set your radio to a specific station you can listen to the music that goes with all the lights. Unfortunately they announced that this year was their last year, but according to their website they are going to a new location next year- phew we were all so bummed when we thought it was going to be gone.