Merry Christmas Day

 

Every Christmas morning I feel like Buddy in Elf and i just want to yell with tons of glee "SANTA!" Such a giddy and exciting morning. Luke was still young enough to not quite get what his stocking was all about so he carefully looked at each thing and would have been content with simply his new book about puppies :) He is so sweet and it was my pleasure (as it is every year) to watch all my babies discover so many treasures and surprises.

 My bid kids have been on a no candy diet since the first of November (completely of their own accord—they hoped I might pay them a big reward for being so healthy for a full year and so I will). But we gave them Christmas as a free-day and they were so very excited to eat treats! They wasted no time pounding suckers and chocolate.

We opened our tiny lot of family gifts too. Since we are headed to Hawaii in January we kept Christmas small. Isn't a plane ticket to Hawaii a million times better than presents under the tree? (not to mention a whole lot more than our usual Christmas budget!)

 Olivia's new doll from Target. Close enough to the real deal but much more affordable for a little one who loves her dolls but isn't quite ready for a hundred dollar version (she may not take the best care of her dolls—but they get played with a ton!)

Bean opening Legos. I know this because that's all he asked for and every gift from everyone was indeed a Lego set. This boy knows his passion!

Luke and me opening his 2013 yearbook that I made for him. He has been loving it a lot since then and really likes to look at all the kids' books filled with pictures of people he loves. These books are a huge effort to create but they are well-loved, well-used and can document my kids' lives as the perfect, concise scrapbook for each year.

My cute parents dropped by in the early afternoon in time to check out all the goods and even read to Luke before his nap. Love this little shot of my dad and Luke. We are so lucky to have grandparents living so close!

Livs and I played with her new Ariel play-doh for a bit that day. Her curls were too adorable all day. I was obsessed :)

We didn't really do gifts this year as I was totally spoiled in September with a new road bike and then Joseph bought a new suit in November. But my hubby snuck in a few fun things for me to use on my brave adventures in outdoor exercising during the cold winter. So far I have been pretty consistent with at least 1 or 2 outdoor runs each week. The bike seems way too cold still and will probably hibernate sadly in my garage until February when I steal her away to SG!