Christmas Day

I'll have to admit that Christmas was more fun this year than it has been a many years. Watching your children enjoy the day is far more fulfilling than any present in a box could be (although I did get some really good stuff)! Steve continues to maintain his stance that we don't buy the boys enough stuff at Christmas. I think he must literally want to wade through the toys Christmas morning (which would be OK, but the practical side of me has to ask - what then? I don't want to wade through toys the rest of the year and our house is not exactly large.) So we compromise and hopefully the boys will look back one day and think they got plenty of good stuff!

Here was what Santa left Luke this year:

And here was Grayson's stash:

Then Santa left them this fire station/police station as a "together" gift. I thought this was a pretty cool find, but the boys were less than impressed. One of the biggest hits of the day was rollerblades/skates. Grayson got the real deal and was actually doing pretty well by the end of the day. Luke got the training variety and thought he was hot stuff. We also got them a ramp (really for their bikes) but we did end up setting up the ramp in the house as well. Between the skates and the ramp they were happy as clams!

Grayson has definitely entered that stage of tearing into each gift, barely noticing what it is, and then hurriedly moving onto the next package to unwrap. I think he got to the end of his gifts and didn't even really know what he had gotten!

Sometimes it's the little things that get the biggest smile! Steve was pretty happy with his beer that I embellished to look like reindeer...
And for Luke, he was thrilled to finally get the purple carabiner he had spied at Lowe's a few weeks earlier.
Mom joined us later Christmas morning which brought some added excitement for the boys (and another chance to open gifts). Then that night we headed to Rich and Jolene's for yet a third celebration and more gift opening!