Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas!  The kids certainly had a most excellent day.  They remembered out instructions and came downstairs together with us (Brian taking the lead!)  He immediately noticed the Mameshiba display I’d set up for them with their plushies, and started singing the Mameshiba Christmas song.  Next they found their new kitchen!  That was a pretty big hit with both.  🙂  I insisted that we have breakfast before doing much more with presents, and we enjoyed some hot cocoa with our new mugs, and our traditional Christmas Day quick breakfast of a cranberry-marzipan stollen.  (We are celebrating Brandon’s German heritage!  But I think a Christmas stollen is perfect because it’s delicious, festive, and super fast–gets us the sugar hit we need to get going after a long night of doing Santa’s work, and gets the kids back to presents as soon as possible.)  😉

When we were ready to attack the double-black-diamond Present Mountain, we headed over to the living room and let the kids go crazy.  And boy, did they!  We might have overdone it this year.  😉  They both got piles of presents and some useful, practical items as well.  The kids got some new soft blankets, Brian got a new Star Wars quilt, and they both got some personalized dishes with their names on them.  I gave Brandon his last surprise, the Lego Architecture Studio that I knew he’d had his eye on..  He’d wanted to be an architect when he was a kid, and I’d seen his notebooks filled with designs sketched out on graph paper!  I hope he’ll enjoy building with this set.  It just wouldn’t be Christmas without getting socks, and I took care of all four of us, with some new Carolina Hurricanes socks.  And, Kendall got some Hello Kitty underwear–that’ll probably help with potty training!  She was so excited she put on a pair, right on top of her pajamas.  A shiny new shopping cart and a cash register like they have at their schools was a big hit with both kids!  Brian got some play goalie equipment in Hurrianes black and red, and a really nice new Hurricanes jersey!  They also both got a selection of toy food, and a pile of books, with Brian getting a cool customized Clone Wars book starring himself.  😉  So many presents, we took some breaks for assembly, hot cocoa, etc.  But mostly we just opened presents and played until naptime.  Brian also did some artwork, some Christmas-themed, and one based on his current favorite library book, “Truck Stop” (we’ve added it to his wish list–he loves that book so much!)

Once Kendall woke up, we got the kids dressed and ready to head to Steve and Sue’s for dinner.  Kendall looked so adorable in her party dress, and I loved the velvet bow!  But she was not at all interested in me getting a decent picture of her.  😉  We had a wonderful visit and a delicious turkey dinner.  The kids brought over some of their toys and we had a great, relaxing time just enjoying them.  Brian made himself a placemat on neon orange paper that said “Brian’s Spot!  Warning:  Do Not Take Brian’s Spot!”  So funny.  (And really good sounding out of the words!)  Hmm, Brian is defending his spot now..  I wonder if we’ve been watching too much of the “Science Guys” (what Brian calls The Big Bang Theory!)  He also made a FosT (Frosty) who also has a bow and arrow to defend against the sun melting him, I guess.  😉  We had a lot of treats and the kids got to open up even more presents!  Steve showed the kids how a mule eats corn, and Miss K spun herself dizzy.  We went back home and read Brian’s new Clone Wars book–Kendall was interested and had to hear it too!  It was a long one, and just the ticket for getting the kids to wind down.  Whew!  What a great day we had together.  🙂

http://youtu.be/yvrfuAvIfRE

This is what they were singing when they came downstairs and saw Mameshiba!