Finally. Caught. Up!!!!
The kids woke us up around 7am, so not too bad. I thought for sure that it would be around 4am! Carter woke up first and we had him crawl in bed with us until Gavin woke up. He was bubbling over and that had to have been the hardest ten minutes of his life. They were so excited to see if Santa had come and being the mean mom I am, I made them wait on the stairs for a minute so I could get their photo. They dug into their stockings first, then we tackled the monstrous pile of presents. I need to do a better job making a list next year – I kept thinking that we didn’t have enough, but I forgot about half the presents that I purchased earlier in the year. Now we are set for their birthdays this March. Nothing like holding a few over…
Santa did a great job delivering the Play Dough that Carter asked for as well as the spring toys for Gavin (I got a photo of one mid-air!). The aftermath of opening presents is always a fun shot – this year was no exception.
We headed over to my parents for more presents with my side of the family and for Christmas dinner. As I edited some of these photos I am blown away at how old my nieces and nephew are. It didn’t seem like it was that long ago when they were my kids ages. Now they are either in college or a teenager (and one almost-teenager). This made me acutely aware that these Christmas’s pass so quickly and measuring another year gone by show so much the growth. We need to do another family portrait. That will be next year, where everyone will moan and groan, but then be so thankful. Because Ryan will be taller than all the women in the family. And Taylor will be FOURTEEN. And my boys will have practically doubled in size… especially since it will have been three years since our last family portrait. So family, this serves as a pre-warning to all of you!
So we have lots of pictures of opening presents – Gavin getting a Nerf gun that pretty much shoots darts like a machine gun, Taylor loving everything that is fox related, Mark with his box that kept producing presents like they were multiplying like bunnies. Grandma got her muckboots and guarded her licorice with her life. Scott had the only box that WASN’T from Amazon. And then there was the GoPro that Grandpa set up on the chandelier to shoot a still picture every three seconds or so. I am sure you can imagine the groaning that occurred when everyone was instructed to, “Show the GoPro! Now HOLD! Okay!” after every little moment. Yet another of those fond “Crazy Grandpa” memories to file away ;-)
The day was mellow and lovely, full of lots of conversation and too much food. Kids running around, new toys being played with (the electronic ones for the adults, the true toys for the kids). And finally at the end of the evening we had to pull on new jammies for the boys and hope they fall asleep on the drive home.
