The Day Santa Came

The girls were so excited for Christmas day to finally arrive.  Despite their excitement, they finally went to sleep on Christmas Eve just in time for Santa to come.  Our kids NEVER sleep in – EVER - except for one morning a year… Christmas day!  It happens every year, and as strange as is it, it is wonderful!  Emily of course couldn’t contain her excitement and was up early, but Katelyn and Brooke didn’t wake up until just before 8:00 a.m. 

We found a website on Christmas Eve day that gave the kids a quiz to determine if they were on the naughty or nice list.  Katelyn was so stressed out as she took the test, but alas, it told her she was on the nice list.  Brooke did NOT want to take the test.  But we talked her into it and she too was on the nice list.  Even though the test calmed their nerves, they were so excited when they came downstairs on Christmas day and discovered that Santa had in fact stopped at our house.

Katelyn was thrilled to find that Santa came through and got her a fishing pole, net and even a blue tackle box.  Brooke was equally jazzed that she got the purple Leapster Explorer she’d been asking for since the Toy Wish Book first arrived.  Emily loved the cell phone Santa gave her too and the girls thought it was great that it had a kitty on it since that is still our favorite nickname for her. 

Katelyn and Brooke opened their Pillow Pets on Christmas Eve so they were excited when Emily opened up hers that morning and could join their comfy club.

Everyone had so much fun opening gifts and checking out each other’s stuff.  Emily thought everything was super fun and tasty.  Brooke was thrilled to “try-on” Emily’s new clothes and Katelyn could hardly wait to try out her new DS games.

Kyle was even excited about the picture he got of his touch screen monitor that didn’t arrive in time for the big day. 

After opening gifts for awhile, the girls were ready to take a DS/Leapster/bottle break and Kyle was sleepy.  He tried using Brooke as a Pillow Pet but she was too wiggly, so he borrowed Emily’s Bumble Bee for our first intermission.

After that, Emily was ready for a nap and we were ready for breakfast so we took a nice break and ate some great food followed by some more relaxing, playing and present opening as soon as Emily woke up from her cat nap. 

 

Emily’s nap recharged her batteries and she was ready to get back to her two favorite activities: 1 – eating weird things off of the floor and 2 – finding things to stand and hold on to.  I was her favorite thing to climb that day but she also loved giant boxes.  She was also thrilled with new noisy toys and sisters that would happily play with them with her.

The girls had so much fun – I love how happy they look in these pictures.

Along with all of the happy smiles, I loved capturing some of their other fun expressions.  Thank goodness they’ve learned to just let me do my thing with the camera.  Resistance is futile.

 

In addition to the gifts we helped them buy, the girls gave us a very special box full of treasures they put together just for us.  Katelyn also made Kyle a “World’s Best Dad” medal to go with mine from last Christmas.  At school she made a “cooking pot” for us during her pottery unit.  Brooke was so proud because she got me a new “laptop” – it looked a lot like an iCarly toy that she got in a kid’s meal last fall, but the thought was so sweet.  She knows my laptop makes me crazy and she was proud to get me a new one.

When the presents had all been opened, we spent the rest of the day hanging out and playing. 

Our new karaoke system from Uncle Marc and Aunt Anna also kept us busy as we perused it’s more than 6,100 songs.

 

Katelyn also put on a fantastic magic show with her new set from Grandma Carol.  Brookie was her assistant and Katelyn’s “spin your head all the way around” trick brought the house down.

The only not so good parts of the day included the fire alarm going off three times while I seared the Prime Rib  - some forgotten burned residue on the bottom of the oven had a hard time enduring the 500 degree temperature and when I opened the oven door to add and remove things, the smoke was just enough to anger our alarm.  I am glad we know it works but we were not glad that poor Emily never got the afternoon nap she so desperately wanted. 

The other not so good moment involved Brookie getting into a fight with the coffee table and the bridge of her nose lost.  Emily uses their princess couch as a step stool to get on the coffee table and after she tried to steal my drink and tipped Kyle’s lunch plate over, I moved the couch away from the table.  It eliminated the step stool problem but without the table to stop it from rocking back and forth, it turned into a sling shot when Brooke leaned on the back of it.

It was one of those injuries that when you come running, you don’t have to ask your child where it hurts because the giant purple bump you see speaks louder than words.  Fortunately she was great about icing it and it improved a lot.  She was purple on days 2 and 3 and green on days 4 and 5… I told her she was like a rainbow and that made it ok.

 

 

In between clearing the house of smoke, making dinner and providing first aid, Katelyn got us all outside fishing.  She was able to catch the swing set several times and kept Kyle busy getting her line untangled about 900 times.  She is definitely going to be ready for opening day of fishing season.

That evening we enjoyed a fantastic Prime Rib dinner with all the trimmings – Emily especially loved her baby-sized twice baked potato.

After dinner it was Lego time… the girls were so excited and so was Kyle.  This picture of him on Christmas day reminded me of one of him in 1982 – the girls feel so lucky to have their own personal Lego Engineer.

During Lego time, Katelyn and Brooke decided to take a break and trade their DSi and Leapster for a bit.  I was listening to the games and said, “Wow, Brooke it sounds like that Leapster game is really neat!”  Katelyn agreed and said “Yeah, this IS really fun Brooke.”  To which Brooke replied, “See I told you it would be cool Katelyn.”

Emily didn’t mind that she didn’t get to trade electronics with anyone.  She was too busy eating more  wrapping paper remnants and trying to hide some of the Legos in her stomach while I played with my camera.  Everyone had a such a great day together.  I am so grateful for our little family of five and that we thoroughly enjoy being together.  It was a wonderful Christmas day and I am so grateful for all of the blessings in my life.