Christmas Highlights

Is there anything better in life than Christmas morning with a 6 year old, a 3 year old, and a 20 month old? I submit that there is NOTHING BETTER.

Andrew and Lily are sharing a room while my parents visit, so they were up by 6 am. We heard them exclaiming in glee at all the presents. They came back upstairs and got us...present opening started about 20 minutes later.

Lily first spied her new rocking chair that my parents gave her. She was so excited that it had her name on it. And it gave us our favorite quote this Christmas. "Daddy! Look! L-I-L-Y spells MINE!"

Andrew "patiently" waiting for the grown-ups to get their coffee and their act together so he can tear into all these gifts.

Shadow actually got a present this year. No, TWO presents. Lucky year number 7 for her, apparently.

Lily's face as she opens the much anticipated Santa gift. He got her a Baw-bee...just like she asked!

Andrew's face as he opens HIS much anticipated Santa gift. A Nintendo DS...just like he ordered.

Jeff's face, as he opens his much anticipated...oh, wait. He had no idea that Andrew would pick out a leopard-print Snuggie for him (with no prompting from me). I was much anticipating taking a picture of the moment, though.

What a stud.

Lily opened her Santa gift and promptly went to sit at the kitchen table to keep it away from Michael. Even though Michael didn't join us until 8 am...and this was at 6:30. But she was happily and quietly playing with her new toy. No desire to come open more gifts.

I'm serious. She was all alone. So the rest of us just kind of opened our gifts and enjoyed the silence.

Turns out she was ALSO licking all the icing off of each pumpkin muffin in the middle of the kitchen table. So much for breakfast side dishes.

Andrew opened all of his gifts in about 8.7 seconds. So to keep him from going into the family room to tear into his stocking, I gave him the camera and asked him to take photos. The rest of the photos are courtesy of our guest photographer...

Pepere got another Dayton shirt. Shocker.

I got a very nice fleece. And a sweater, and a fleece throw, a fleece lined sweatshirt, and a fleece sweatsuit. Apparently I look cold to my family. Or they don't approve of me setting the thermostat to 66 and are trying to give me a hint.

Memere pretending to look like she feels good. Michael head-butted her last night. She doesn't seem swollen or black and blue, but she's had a good old head-ache ever since. Merry Christmas!

Andrew's Christmas pile. He made out quite well this year. Not pictured...the DS...which was already charging.

Lily opening something. Andrew did quite a good job taking pictures, eh?

The gift that Andrew picked out for Lily. Another room for her dollhouse.

Now we await bedtime. The early wake-up and the high quantities of sugar = meltdown city.

I hope your Christmas was enjoyable!