Merry Christmas

After our evening with David's family, we headed home to get ready for Santa's arrival. We checked Norad for Santa's location and found out we had about an hour before he would be in our area. Needless to say, bedtime was quick and easy this night!

I hadn't put out the kids stockings, because I knew Gianna would be pull them down so I had intended to put them up on Christmas Eve. I never said anything to the kids about this and they didn't say anything to me. However, after I put Gianna to bed (David had already tucked the big kids into bed), I came into the living room and found this.....David helped the children make a plate of cookies and chocolate milk for Santa while Gemma added her socks to the fireplace! One for her and one for Spencer - I guess Gianna was on her own! David said she thought I had forgotten about the stockings!

I went ahead and put their stockings up before I went to bed. I wanted to make sure Santa had plenty of room for all the goodies or coal.... :)

The presents finally made it under the tree on Christmas Eve.

Here are the kids Christmas morning. Santa leaves his gifts by the stockings (I neglected to take a picture!), that's why the kids aren't even looking at the tree.

Gianna and Gemma are checking out the loot - they didn't do too shabby!

Here is Gianna unwrapping her gift - an Aquadoodle. She is really enjoying the toy. But I think she had more fun unwrapping! After this, she helped David with his gifts.

Here are Gemma and Spencer opening their gifts. After spending some time admiring their gifts, the kids spent about 30 minutes sitting quietly on the couch reading! (They each recevied 2 chapter books.) By Christmas night, Gemma had finished one book!

After a quiet morning at home we showered, dressed (I should also mention that David had to go out and clear the driveway of 4 more inches of snow. This was the heavy, wet kind - he was exhausted when he was done!) and went to spend the afternoon with Judy, the kids and grandpa and Nonna. It was a quiet (relatively speaking) afternoon. Judy had a spread of appetizers and we just grazed while visiting and enjoying one another's company.

Then we went to my mom's house. She too had a little something for each child. After an evening of visiting it was time to go home and go to bed! I really wanted a picture of the kids together NOT in pajamas. I had tried several times throughout the day. Gianna was always being a stinker. Apparently I was ALWAYS catching her at the wrong time.

We had a great Christmas with our family. David and I feel very blessed to have such a great family and have great friends in our lives!