Where was I? Oh, yes, I believe I last left after we'd arrived back from St. Louis on Dec. 23. We then enjoyed a quiet day at home as a family on Christmas Eve and Matt's parents joined us for Christmas Eve service at our church that evening. Here are the kids on Christmas Eve night in their new jammies from Luke and Lexi. (A theme in my coming posts will be my utter inability to get a good shot of both of them at the same time.)
The kids woke up at their normal time (7:30ish) and we headed downstairs to open stockings, have breakfast, and open gifts.
I've read tons of blogs/articles this holiday season about Christmas traditions and whether or not to "do" Santa (and again found it interesting/sad how a virtual war can be waged over different parenting styles and philosophies). Matt and I have come to this conclusion: while our goal is absolutely to always have the focus and emphasis of the season to be on the miraculous birth of our Savior and the joy that comes from giving to others, we also don't feel convicted about leaving Santa out altogether. So, on our Christmas morning, Santa brings one big gift and the kids each get stockings and 4 other gifts: "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read." (Stolen from this blog. Love her.) Who knows how this will change and evolve as the kids grow? But we felt it worked really well for us this year. Here's Brooke hugging the book she got. Who knew?
After opening gifts at our house, we headed over to Matt's parents. Where Miles had his second breakfast in about as many hours.
Then it was Brooke's turn to cop a 'tude and refuse to smile for the stocking pictures.
Miles was all about it, though.
Then we opened gifts (I didn't really get any good photos of this due to where I was sitting and where the kids were) and the kids played with some of their things for a few minutes.
Bubble Guppies bus! Yessss!!!!
Then we headed over to Matt's Grandma's for gifts and breakfast.
A Christmas miracle! They're both smiling!
Grandma Audie got the kids a roller coaster that we've since set up in our basement and has been a lifesaver through these cold, snowy days. Pictures and videos of that to come, too. Here she is with Brooke and the cookie jar full of cookies that she made for Grandma Audie (a few of them from her Easy Bake Oven - yum!).
So after our third Christmas celebration of the day, we headed home for naps (everyone but Brooke took a nap), then got ready to go back over to Matt's parents for dinner and a photo shoot by the tree.
(Sidenote: I realized after hearing from a few friends on one of my last posts that I've failed to mention on here that we're expecting #3 mid-April. Sorry! We're very excited, aren't finding out the sex, and I'm still feeling pretty great. We're praying as always for a safe and healthy delivery and baby.)
Miles was over pictures. It had been a long day.
"Anybody else ready to go home?" And we were. Because we were leaving for Florida the next morning...
As I mentioned, the pictures are all loaded for my post on our vacation, but I just don't have the energy to get that post together tonight. Oh, and the Golden Globes are on and I'm a nerd like that. Hopefully I'll have that one up in the next couple days.
Happy New Year!
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