Christmas!

Believe it or not, Christmas has already come and gone! We stayed here for the first time ever and celebrated with just the four of us. Simon was excited and ready for Santa to come and bring presents, and once he learned that the presents would go under the tree, he was a big help in getting the ornaments up and the needles cleaned up. Nate chose to doze with me while the boys led the decorating efforts.

And here's the finished tree! I'm proud to say that it's toddler proof--not a single breakable ornament to be found. Of course that means that many of our favorites stayed in storage this year, but it was worth it for the peace of mind.

On Christmas Eve we opened a few early gifts, including a couple of favorites: a new Frosty "Talk" book from Aunt Karyn and Neville and an Elmo Christmas DVD from Aunt Donna and Uncle Paul that was a huge hit! Simon donned his reindeer antlers and we watched Elmo...several times throughout the weekend :)

Here's our tree after Santa visited...and this was maybe half of everything that these boys received from all of our generous family!

Simon was up at 5:20 on Christmas morning, and while he was very excited to see all that Santa had brought, he definitely took it in stride and just went directly for the new guitar he saw first under the tree...

He helped open everyone's gifts, not just his own, and was a pretty happy little guy when he saw all of the wonderful gifts that Santa and the family had sent. We spent the rest of the day checking out all of his new toys, and wound up "cleaning up" after us with the help of his new vacuum from Grandma and Papa, which was definitely one of the big hits for the year.

Simon is such a fan of the vacuum that he woke us all up at 4:15 this morning so he could vacuum his room...so we had a pretty long morning. He and Nate spent some time together and Nate got a workout with some tummy time.



So that was our Christmas! We are lucky enough that in addition to our early Christmas with the Winstanleys and this big Christmas weekend, we will have one last hurrah when Grandpa Renehan comes out next weekend.

Thanks to all of the boys' cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and other friends and family for all of the generous clothes, toys and special ornaments--you helped make our holiday very special!