Finally, a Christmas Post

Life's busy. I've been meaning to put together a Christmas post and it's taken me four days to get to it. I guess that's not so bad!

We had a wonderful Christmas. I had visions of years in our future when the kids are older and our house is full of Christmas magic. This year held plenty of Christmas magic and I tried to take it all in and relish in the miracle of the season.

Our festivities started with church on Christmas Eve. We decided that I would take the girls to the childrens' service and Andy would stay home with the napping boys. I had visions of sugarplums dancing in my head apparently.
Here we are before we left...

Yeah, it wasn't fun. It was hard. I wanted Andy to magically appear. The girls were excited being in the sanctuary and not in Sunday School, it was crowded, the service was boring (sorry, I feel guilty saying that), the girls couldn't see, I wore a sweater that was way too hot to wear while under pressure, and it was very stressful keeping the girls quiet and sitting nicely on my own. Lesson learned.

When we got home the girls sprinkled reindeer food in the yard. Ella was mid-change and ended up wearing Lilly's sweatshirt and boots. She cracks me up.

The girls went to bed without a problem and we braced ourselves for a 4 a.m. wake up by Lilly. We had a grand plan to keep her happy for a couple of hours before Ella woke (Ella is our very late sleeper). We put a present from us (since she found it 2 days before Christmas) in her stocking and we planned to let her open her stocking and then play with the present (iPod Shuffle).

Sometime in the night Santa came!

Much to our surprise, Lilly slept until 7 a.m.! This was truly a Christmas miracle. She often rises at 5:30 a.m. and is always awake by 6:30 at the latest. I fed Gabe around 6 a.m. and then waited downstairs for her to wake. It was kind of nice!

Good morning sleepyhead!

Lilly's first reaction.

We followed our plan to let her open her stocking but we also let her open a few other gifts while she waited. Ella woke shortly after so it all worked out (yes, I'd been stressing about the exact details for a few days...).

Sweet boy Luke woke before Ella. Hi baby boy. Merry Christmas.

Holding his very first present!

Lilly took it to open it for him and he reached for it back! So cute!

Rattles! He loves them.

Ella was adorable because she was so surprised when she saw all the presents. She ran to pick one out and then took it to a special spot away from the chaos to open it. She did this with each subsequent present. I can't take it.

Baby Gabe woke up and also liked the rattles. Hi precious baby.

At one point I caught a glimpse of the room from afar.
An awesome mess. There's nothing like Christmas morning.

Ella opening another present in her special spot.

She loves dogs. Dogs, dogs, dogs.
This dog barks, whines, wags his tail, and so on.

My favorite picture of the day. I don't know why. So cute, so genuine, so happy.

Kid shot (sorry Lilly, you were mid-yawn) but at least they're all looking!

I swear the boys liked their bows! Lukey was just hungry.

Babcia arrived to watch the girls open their gifts. She spent the day with us and brought them many gifts which they opened in the evening.

Lilly got an awesome microphone from Santa. She can hook her iPod to it and it plays her music aloud so we can all sing along. I think I like it the most. Just tonight Andy and I were singing duets while the kids were in bed. It rocks.

Another favorite picture. Ella's mouth is full of candy cane. The child ate so much junk on Christmas morning. Seriously, she can put away the sugar. Lilly is like me and isn't all that interested. She likes the idea of opening a treat but she rarely eats it. Ella's like her daddy.

The boys received a super cool track with cars that spin and then shoot out. The girls loved playing with it. I like it too! Boy toys are fun!

We opened gifts, ate a delicious breakfast comprised of Cinnabons, sausage and egg casserole and perogis, visited Jackie and Thomas to exchange gifts (we always go in our pajamas), hung out and cooked an early dinner (ham, green beans and more perogis), opened Babcia's presents, and constantly discussed and remembered why and what we were really celebrating... the birth of Christ.

Merry Christmas 2010!