Christmas Day Highlights

Oh geez, I just realized I wrote these but never published them. I am failing miserably in the blogging world these days. Anyway, here is a bit of Christmas and New Year for ya in March.

Christmas Day! We are enjoying the late morning wake-ups on Christmas morning as loooong as we can. Even though we had told the kids what would happen the next morning, I think they had forgotten. I was probably more excited than they were to have them run out to the fireplace. We are loosely going with the "3 gifts" plan for the kids. I had heard another mom I look up to and respect say that when her kids were growing up, they gave them each 3 gifts at Christmas. Since the Bible reveals that three gifts were given to Jesus at the first Christmas - the gold, frankincense and myrrh - then why can't we follow the same mentality. I like that it is based from a truth told in the Bible and I like how it can aid in keeping the insanity of stuff, stuff, stuff during the Holiday season to a minimum. Of course they get gifts in their stockings and we do fun things and outings with them leading up to Christmas that could be counted as gifts, but last year and this year, we have gone with the 3 gifts to open on Christmas morning. (and let's not forget Nana and Gigi here either. So far, they have NOT instituted the 3 gift rule - ha!)

If I'm being honest here, Caden went straight to the cookies and milk we left for Santa. He was astonished that they were gone. This is one of my favorite memories of a child growing up. We always left milk and cookies for Santa and they were always missing the next morning. I'm not going to get into the Santa debate on here for now, but we feel we have a fun, healthy, memory making, priorities-straight way to have Santa be part of Christmas for our family. Caden kept going over and saying "Santa ATE my cookie!!!???" He told all of our family the rest of the day to every house we went to. I love what Caden can get stuck on. :)

 

If your counting in the picture below, yes...you are correct, there is just one already opened toy in the middle for Easton. That is because the child does not need anything. He doesn't like to play with "baby" toys, he wants to play with whatever Caden and Jenna are playing with! And since we already rival Toys r Us clearance zone in our toy room, I decided to bring out the twins' favorite toy their "first" Christmas -Elefun. It hasn't had batteries in it since we moved so Easton has never known it to work. So, a fresh set of batteries, telling Caden and Jenna it was Easton's now and boom - Merry Christmas Easton! Oh yes we did. And he loved it!

I had a blast picking out things to put in their stockings. Just little things that reflect their personality and likes. We are still at the stage where they like the same things and look for the boy or girl version of that thing in their pile. So this year, their stockings included curly straws, dinosaur figurines, flashlights(a pink pony and green dinosaur) that light up when you squeeze the tail and roars/neighs like a pony -they are the cutest things I have ever seen -got them at a consignment sale for a $1!!!, drawing pads, chapstick, markers, bubble bath, toy trains and big boy/girl underwear!

 

 

 

 

See? Thrilled with his Christmas morning!



 Next, we packed up and went to Nana and Papa's for Christmas lunch. We just kept the kids in their Christmas jammies since they were so stinkin adorable! And yes, creeper mom here - had to take a picture of Easton asleep during his nap. I Looooove sleeping baby pictures!

 

We all did a horrible job of picture taking at Nana's this year....we will fix that next year. But here is Easton and his cousin Dawson - just 7 months apart. They will be close buds growing up!

 

I love this little crew!

 The next morning we woke up at Gigi and Papa T's house for Christmas with my side of the family. It was a wonderful Christmas and we were blessed and spoiled with too many gifts.

These two are cut from the same crop. And they are TROUBLE together.

Jenna in heaven - cousin Kelsey fixing up her hair and looking through her "pitchas" on her phone.

Look at my beautiful big girl!
 

 And I'll leave you with the view I have seen all too often since Christmas. Jenna (especially), pointing her camera up at you and snapping away. You better believe I go through her and Caden's camera often and delete all of the oh-so-unflattering pictures they have captured. !!!!