Christmas Day

The stockings: They were full of exciting things like hair clips, rubber bands, toothbrushes, and toothpaste.  Oh, and some candy and glow sticks.

I wanted to wait until after church (started at 11 a.m.) to open presents.  Andrew (and everyone else I talked to) said that was mean and unrealistic.  My mom reminded me that when I was little we once had to go to all three hours of church before opening our presents.  I reasoned that since I didn't even remember that Christmas it clearly wasn't that big of deal.  But, in the end we had enough time to open gifts and get to church pretty much on time.

Liz unwrapped her gifts pretty quickly.  Then, she unwrapped all of Ellie's gifts because Elle just wasn't interested in doing it herself.  Finally she unwrapped Alaina's last few presents--at Alaina's request--because Laines was more interested in the presents she had already opened.  I guess Santa didn't need to stress about the two older girls having similar amounts of gifts to open after all.

The girls wanted their toys removed from the packaging pretty much immediately--quite possibly the least pleasant part of Christmas for me (those things are so secure!).

Ellie's favorite gift was probably her baby doll from Nana & Papa--I knew she'd like because I watched her trying to pull one from the bottom of a stack at Costco (total movie moment, the stack started to fall on her, but I caught it just in time).  Gabrielle also got a set of crib sheets, a pair of shoes, some large toddler legos, and a tea set.

Lainey's favorite gift is a toss up between her Disney nightgowns, her "Rapunzel and her prince" dolls, and her "American Doll" (a knock-off).  She also got a couple play food sets and an American Girl doll pet.

Lizzie's favorite Christmas gift was her Mulan barbie (or barbie-ish doll). She also got a bike, a horse (knock-off) and couple pets for her American girl doll, and a couple Lego Creator sets.  The Creator series is my favorite Lego series because kids can make three things from the pieces in each box.  They kept Liz busy building and rebuilding all the following week.

Once the kids had opened all their presents, we moved them from the living room to the "nook" so we could open our own gifts in relative peace.  I gave Drew ski and barbecue stuff.  He gave me clothes, a Harvey bag, and an iPad (along with the "boring" stuff I requested: garments, a salad spinner, and cancel-the-internet-on-my-phone).

Tired parent pictures by Liz:

Holiday Garb:

I told Liz to crouch down so I could get a tighter shot of the girls, not expecting Alaina to do the same thing--funny result though.

After church Ellie and I napped, the older kids played and Drew did a fabulous job cooking for our annual Christmas dinner with the Pomeroys.  We had our traditional ribs, fancy mac'n cheese (this year it had bacon), rolls, and such.  It was a lovely day.