Christmas {Part Deux}

{part deux}

It sounds about right that I am finishing up this post about two weeks after Christmas! 

{yes and now nearly four weeks later...egads!!!}
Moving on from part one to Christmas morning!!

The absolute BEST and most amazing gift of all was sleeping in

on Christmas morning, past...wait for it...8:00am!!!

OK, I actually woke up at 7:45, about 3 hours after going to bed

and thought that the entire Christmas morning must have happened

without me!  Then I scrambled to get breakfast in the oven and grab the cameras, brush my teeth, you know the important stuff and then all my sleepyheads were awake, including the big sleepyhead!

Anytime, and I mean anytime we stay out late it usually backfires,

usually lots of night waking and up before the sun.  

This time it was truly a Christmas miracle, we were so thankful!

It was also such a different morning, the sun was shining,

the weather was downright warm compared to years past,

and here it still continues to feel more like Spring.

While I LOVE a snowy Christmas, I have to say taking pictures

with sunlight coming through the windows was heavenly!

Christmas morning is to me the most magical part of the day.

We are all snuggled up in our jammies, at home, together,

just being, it is just perfect.  

When our home was being built Matt always said how he could

picture Ethan coming down the stairs Christmas morning.
Now we have a whole little production heading down the stairwell.

There is no mantel to hang our stockings on, 

so the stairwell is where Santa leaves those goodies.

I still think they are a little curious about the Santa guy,

but this year it was so fun that they were able to get he

was coming and putting out the treats for him.  They were so excited!!!!

And while he feeds the carrots to his reindeer {who leave little bits on our front stairs and driveway},  eats all the cookies, drinks the milk

{lots of crumbs in the milk this year!}, he always leaves

a special chocolate treat...

I love Santa's predictability!!

Santa listened this year to Ethan's request for 

Mario and Sonic 2012 London Olympic Games {wii}.

I actually think it was Ralph who delivered that message.

{We do miss our Ralph the Elf}

and a very cool snowboard, which he has yet to 

break in...and this mom is actually totally ok with that!

And the littlest members of our crew, LOVED their new firetrucks!

Santa behaved again!

Whenever we asked Griffin what he wanted for Christmas...

"a big red firetruck!"  He was so excited!!

{post Christmas update}
Since Santa brought the trucks...ahem...I don't know exact specifics.
They appear to be from the Rescue Heroes line and are super cool
because they shoot little squirts of water {plastic}.  We build up the 
Melissa & Doug Jumbo Blocks into towers on fire and then squirt away!!

Ethan opened his most anticipated gift...a Nintendo dsi XL
{this mom wants his vision to stay 20/20 hence the larger screen}
Oh the look of happy happy joy joy, so worth all that saving!!!

And we opened our gifts from E's little Santa workshop at school.
I love those, really.
This plaque declared Matt #1 Dad...was there any doubt? {smile}
I have a matching one...
Eat that award shows, we don't need no stinkin' Oscar.

We spent the rest of the early morning hours opening presents and playing.
Absolutely nothing better, my favorite part of Christmas!!!

I love this action shot of them opening their new Cars GeoTrax set.

The rest of the day we spent eating Christmas dinner, 

blowing out the candles on Jesus' birthday cupcakes.

One of my sisters stopped by to give the boys her gifts.
E still wished for his two front teeth...

We played and just enjoyed being together.
Oh yes and falling sleep on the sofa
to the favorite movie this Christmas
The Polar Express...

{michelle}