Christmas Day

Everyone slept in a bit on Christmas morning which was nice.  I don't remember telling anyone to get dressed so I'm not sure how it happened, but everyone actually got dressed before we looked at our stockings.

Some ready for the day pictures:

Patiently waiting...

Fussing because???

They must have been waiting for me.  My mom took several pictures of the kids before we did anything.

 Finally!  We opened stockings before breakfast.

We had apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast, but everyone was either so excited for presents or full from munching on candy that very little was consumed.  :)

We approach gifts differently than most.  Jim and I give each child one nice gift, and we take the kids to the Dollar Tree to buy presents for each other.  Then we seek as many opportunities as possible to do things for others.  That's the best part of Christmas for our family.  We have so much fun planning and carrying that part out.  There are a lot of reasons we do it this way, but the biggest is because we want to focus on the spiritual part of Christmas.  One added benefit is that the kids very sincerely appreciate everything they receive. 

Anyway, on to the gift opening.  I'm always impressed by how many presents end up under our tree despite the way we approach it.  Logan got Abby this cute flower.

I'm impressed he looked at me for a picture!  He was super excited about his Mr. Potato Head from us.

Weeks before Christmas we came up with the idea to get the girls matching dresses because Annie LOVES clothes and particularly loves the idea of matching her baby sister.  After we'd ordered the dresses I had a conversation with Annie in which she told me that she liked new clothes just as much as new toys.  We were excited to see her reaction on Christmas.  The kids handed out the presents, so we didn't have much control over the order.  The girls' gifts came out the way we'd hoped though.  The kids gave Abby hers first.  When she, with help, opened her very sparkly Christmas dress Annie's eyes got BIG.  Then Annie's face fell for a brief moment when she remembered it was for her sister.  Annie quickly recovered though, and dove into unwrapping her present from us (which amazingly was the next one pulled out).  I've never seen a child unwrap a present with such excitement; we think she suspected what it was.  She was thrilled about the dress.

Abby was so sweet all day (as usual).

This is out of order, but this was actually the very first present opened.  It was the largest present under the tree and Logan knew it was for him.  He couldn't wait to open it.

He was quite surprised to open that big box and find another box inside of it.  Then he was further surprised to find nothing but his siblings' clean laundry inside the second box.  We had to prompt him to search a little better.  He was quite happy when he found out what was inside: a LEGO giftcard!  We'd been planning a trip to Minneapolis for the end of that week and he was highly anticipating a visit to the LEGO store, although he didn't have any money saved.  So this was a big deal to him.  My mom also gave him a LEGO giftcard, my dad gave him a Visa giftcard for the same purpose, and Jim's grandma sent him some gift money for whatever he wanted.  He was set!

The kids were also very excited about their gifts from other family and each other.  Although, I think their smiles were the biggest when Jim and I opened the things they'd given us.  It was so sweet.    My mom gave them each a clothing item and a fun gift (doll for Annie, ball for Abby, LEGO card for Logan, and more Potato Heads for Alex).  My dad sent them all giftcards which will be fun to shop with when we have time.  Jim's grandma sent some money for them to choose something and Jim's parents sent them matching jammies.  My sister sent us a family membership to a children's museum we have here in town; such a great idea and we've already used it! 

We saved my mom's gift from us for last.  I'd been wanting to make her a memory book for years and finally managed it this year.  She has so many people who love her!  It was a great experience for me to put it together and read all of the kind things people had to say about my mom.  She really is awesome.

After we finished opening presents we spent the day relaxing.  The kids had a lot of Dollar Tree projects between their stocking stuffers and presents for each other, so they spent the entire day at the table just doing those.  Alex went between his Potato Heads and his projects all day.

Annie couldn't wait to try on her new dress.

That night the kids wore their matching jammies that Jim's parents had sent.  They were too cute.

Jim gave me new jammies too, so I joined in the picture.

Merry Christmas!