Saturday, December 26, 2009

Spreading (out) a little Christmas cheer.

Christmas seems to come and go in the blink of an eye. This is the first year that we've had any child (Avery) actually be excited about Christmas and understand what's happening, understand that gifts are going to be opened and all of that. It's been fun to watch things through her eyes, but in typical 5 year old fashion she cannot WAIT to get to opening presents when she knows that might be an option. And truly, who are we kidding? We ALL like that part!

Christmas Day was spent with my parents and family. We had a good time, presents were opened, all that jazz. We came home to take a few obligatory pictures with everyone in their good clothes. That was NOT a good thing. Declan was MAD about it all (no nap) and ended up whacking Macey on the head a good 7 times in a row. That made me MAD and I brought him to his crib, then got MAD at James for trying to take too many pictures and setting up the $*^%& tripod when all I wanted was a quick snapshot of our lives. I guess he captured it, but it was total chaos and lots of pent up anger. Merry Christmas!!

I don't know what we were thinking, but we decided to haul the kids upstairs to see the Step 2 roller coaster we had set up the night before. That was a HUGE hit truly, with Avery absolutely loving it and Declan, still tired, tossing fits about it. Caden liked it too, but what he found was the Fisher Price bubble mower we had bought for Declan. Caden fell in love. He pushed that mower ALL around, sending bubbles up everywhere and just enjoying all the noise it made! We decided not to open the few gifts still under the tree for them and sent them to bed instead....where Avery didn't fall asleep until nearly 11pm due to all the excitement!

This morning we headed to James' parents to do Christmas with his family. We had a great time and spent the whole day over there. Then James headed home and I headed to Wal-Mart to check out some 50% off Christmas deals with my mom for an hour. She brought me home and then we had dinner...with Avery begging to open those presents still! God love her, she does NOT forget easily! So we compromised - after dinner we opened stockings (Target dollar spot and Dollar Tree items!). This seemed to appease her, but both Caden and Declan got Slinkys and apparently she wanted one as well. She never threw a fit, but was insistent that she hold one. She finally got to and now she and James are reading the Bible and doing prayers.

Tomorrow, we have promised, we will open the gifts under the tree upstairs. I hope it doesn't disappoint her! I'm sure it won't, she is quite easy to please really. We just feel it's best to spread these things out and not have a bunch of crabby children because they aren't sleeping due to so much excitement. Or perhaps we're shooting ourselves in the foot, because the anticipation of opening gifts is still lingering, causing them not to fall asleep!

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