Christmas morning was...mostly about the trampoline

We let the boys open their 'Santa' presents first thing. Alec would usually want to stop and play with each thing, then move on to the next.

Even the apple was an awesome present! (Note to self: next year spend more on me and give Alec fruit).

Maggie loved her girly doggie bed. I went as girly as possible-she's the only other female in the house-I need my help!

James, of course, is at the 'I love wrapping paper' phase of life. Consequently, he only got 3 gifts...

We headed back to my parents' for breakfast-Eggs Benedict-YUM!!

Kayden's new wagon was the 'Space Mountain' of the diaper crowd!

After presents at my parents', we headed home for Alec's big surprise. Paul even skype'd his parents so they could see Alec's face when he first saw it!!

...12 Days of...7 days of...morning of...Christmas!

This year Paul & I decided to do the '12 Days of Christmas' to a family of 8, with the aid of my sister Kelsey. We used some of our Christmas budgets on that instead of each other. It was SO fun!! The children were trying to catch us, so it made drop-offs very exciting. I got a picture of Kelsey on Christmas Eve, preparing for the trip:
This year Alec found some gifts from Paul's family and tore into one before I could stop him, but we really liked the idea of spreading out the fun, so we started the '7 Nights of Christmas', letting him open a gift each night. Here he is Christmas Eve enjoying his latest 'choo choo' and his Christmas Eve PJ's from Nana:My Uncle takes great pleasure in finding the noisiest things possible for Alec, so this Christmas (Eve) he got a loud book:The highlight of Christmas morning was Alec's 'ride on' Thomas from his Granny and Grandad who bought it for him when they were over visiting back in October:

It was so fun this year. Christmas is definitely better with children!
In the evening we went to my brother, Christopher's for dinner and some games.Afterwards, Paul and I got to go see a movie. I'd been pretty excited for Marley & Me and was not disappointed. I cried through a lot of the movie, but it was great! I highly recommend it, but bring a tissue. Paul's very picky about movies and he liked it too (this is the 4th film I saw at the cinema this year, we only go if we really want to see it these days).

Another point for the 'Nature' argument...

Hilary invited Alec & I to join her & Catherine in making some Christmas crafts this morning. Alec is not the least bit interested in crafts & I struggle to get him to color pictures (no future Rembrandt in our household), but we always have fun with the Muckleroys, so we decided to go.

Alec & Catherine are polar opposites, each perfect representations of their gender. Today's example is: she likes things neat, he likes them messy. When we started allowing the children to pick out decorations to make trees, Alec was more interested in dumping the bowl on the table...4 times. Each time, Catherine would glower at him, then painstakingly pick them all up and put them back into the bowl.
Then, Hilary brought out the paint and a sense of foreboding filled me. At first, it was cute, he would put his hand in the paint and mix all the colors, Cat was clearly getting frustrated:
But, that wasn't enough, he decided it would be fun to paint things other than the ornaments:

I would have been worried about the damage, but Hilary's the one asking him to say 'cheese' while she takes pictures of it & it was child-friendly, so it all wiped off!

I love Cat's face in this one, it's almost as if she's thinking, "Now, how am I going to clean this all up??"
I'm still up for an arranged marriage though, I think they compliment each other well and they're both so cute!

Christmas Tree Hunting

Last night Mom and Dad invited us out to dinner and then to help them pick out their Christmas tree. John and Kelsey, and Kari and Ben were also able to come. Alec didn't enjoy being out in the cold to look at trees, but he sure enjoyed mashed potatoes and looking at trees indoors with his grandpa. Guess he's a Vegas baby so far...