Christmas Morning 2010

What a wild a crazy Christmas morning! We usually hold the kids upstairs until I get the breakfast casserole in the oven and the adults are all set and ready with cameras poised. I was in the process of doing that when I heard footsteps running into the den. Then I was greeted with squeals of joy I have never heard in my entire life. Anna was in shock at what she saw and just kept squealing and jumping up and down. Marshall started videoing and then somehow Sam escaped the other adults upstairs and Anna started pointing out everything to him. Poor Jack was sitting at the top of the steps begging to come down so we finally let him in on the action.
It was so much fun watching their excitement! After playing with all the new toys, Sam and Anna took a break for breakfast with the adults, but Jack wanted nothing to do with food. We opened gifts until noon and had lots of fun laughing and enjoying Christmas morning through the eyes of our children.

The biggest hit for Sam was the box of packing peanuts!

We're opening up Jack's special gift for us that he made at school. He brought it home last week and insisted that we put it under the tree and wait until Christmas morning to open it. He was so excited about it!

Grandy is showing off the garden flags Jack and Anna made for all the grandparents at school this year.

Uncle Mason was such a trooper this trip because Anna could not get enough of him! She was so excited to see him an stuck by his side most of the time. She even shared her new princess chap stick with him.

Christmas Eve 2010

What a wonderful time we had this year! Ninny and Grandy rolled into town Christmas Eve morning, Pop and Grammy showed up after lunch, and Mason finally arrived after dinner. We had a house full of people and lots of fun this Christmas. The kids were more excited about seeing family than actually getting presents, at least they were before they saw all the gifts being unloaded from the cars!

We had a lazy day hanging out around the house playing. We attempted a photo shoot with Ninny and Grandy, but you see how that turned out.

After dinner the kids got to open one gift - the most annoying animals ever from their Aunt Beverly and Uncle Jim! Just remember that payback is coming . . . .

We also watched videos of Jack singing at school and Jack and Anna singing at church. After that, we watched a special video of my Granddaddy reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 at the Wellford Baptist Church Christmas Eve service from 2006. I love that I have that on video and we will make a new tradition of watching it every year.

After baths, the kids finally got to wear the Christmas jammies that Grammy and Pop sent a couple weeks ago and they have been dying to put on. We attempted a photo shoot of that, too.

This is since sweet Sam never got his individual picture in front of the tree during my Sunday morning attempts.

Next the kids rocked out with their Daddy and had a little performance for everyone.

We finally sent three excited kids off to bed and Hank got to open a gift from Grammy - homemade doggie treats.

It was a fun day and the next morning was priceless.
More pictures to come...

19 Months

My baby boy was officially 19 months old yesterday. Over the past couple weeks, he really seems like such a big boy to me. He wants to do everything his siblings do, and he's pretty good at keeping up with them most of the time. He's both a stinker and a snuggly sweetheart multiple times a day. He's still not really saying much, but understands absolutely everything and follows directions better than the other two! He has a speech/language evaluation scheduled for after the holidays and I'm pretty sure he will qualify. He had his 18 month well-visit about a month ago and with the exception of speech, was right on track for everything else. He weighed in at 27 lbs (75 %ile) and I can't remember how tall he was but he's still a shorty (25th %ile)! He absolutely loves balls and he's got great aim most of the time. It's hard to believe that my sweet baby boy will be a big brother in just a month. Oh how we love our Sam!