Christmas Day is Here

I was awakened at 5:30am by a yelling, screaming 2 1/2 year old--"Mommy, I'm a-waaaaaake! Mommy, I'm a-waaaaaake!" 5:30am? Not too bad on Christmas morning, really. There have been times in our marriage, pre-children, that Doug hasn't slept AT ALL due to his own excitement. He's mellowed a bit and this year fell asleep around 2am and got up at 6. Why 6? Because that was when Keegen started ringing the huge jingle bell after saying, "I want to wake everyone up!" RING RING RING! "I want to wake everyone up!" RING RING RING!

And, not so surprisingly, that did the trick. Doug came up. Doug's brother Trevor next. Then Bode. And last Trevor's wife Bethany.

Keegen asked for popcorn when he woke up, so i was busy making that (in my Whirly Pop. Yum) as everyone descended the stairs. We started the day with popcorn and orange julius, power-food to get us through the opening of presents...

This was a really fun year for Christmas around here. The boys are both old enough now to be super-excited about EVERYTHING. Gift opening was no exception. They were thrilled with it all--the GeoTrax airport (an addition to their remote control trains), the light sabers, the Hot Wheels set Bode's been asking for (OH! the GASP he let out when he saw it!), the Duplo firestation and helicopter. The adults were spoiled too. We finished off with my favorites, the stockings. Growing up, stockings were my favorite, too. My mom, er, uh, Santa, always filled them with fun little gifties--pads of paper, earrings, lip gloss; etc. Santa filled the boys with markers, a coloring book, Hot Wheels trucks and cars and, of course, candy.

We then made our traditional eggs benedict breakfast and settled in to play with the new toys. We went to an early showing of Despereaux--a tradition in my family to see a movie on Christmas. The boys enjoyed it although Rat World was uber-creepy and Keegen wailed, "Mommy, I'm SCARED!" on two occasions. But it was a cute flick.

We enjoyed hanging out the rest of the day. I got a brief but lovely nap. And then we ate tasty ham and rolls in the evening. Perfect.