Christmas 2011

We spent Christmas Eve with part of John's family having a lovely buffet dinner and a mellow evening. They were gracious enough to invite my mom and Aunt Barb to join as well. We sang Christmas songs, read a Christmas picture book, and made it home early. It was low-key and fun. A week after Christmas, we had "Christmas 2" (as Sam and Lily were calling it) when my dad was in town at my parents' house. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of either of these fun evenings. 

Christmas morning, we had my mom and Aunt Barb over for a gigantic breakfast (way too much food, but it was oh, so good!) I thought we'd have to distract Charlie from the presents long enough to eat breakfast, but the concept of Christmas morning/Santa hasn't really sunk in yet. After breakfast, we had to tear Charlie away from playing in the toy room to come open presents! Why did we even buy anything? He was pretty into his stocking that Santa brought him and once he saw the presents, he was really good at getting the wrapping paper off. 

George didn't get any presents from us this year. He was happy with the ribbons and watching Charlie's antics.

Aunt Barb and Mom brought gifts that were the hit of the day. The first was a talking Lightning McQueen that asks, "Where's Mater?" Sure enough, the next present to open was Mater!

I found a set of real mini-sized tools for a great deal months ago and saved it for my tools-obsessed little man. Charlie loves real tools and turns every kitchen utensil into a tool. He needs lots of supervision with them and some of the tools (the hammer especially) have been on "time out" in the cupboard quite a few times.

I love this picture- look how happy he is! 

Figuring out the pliers

Showing off his sweet suspenders

George thought Charlie was pretty entertaining

After opening presents, we hurried to get ready for church. I had arranged for my friend, Sarah Maxwell, to come sing a special musical number for our sacrament meeting so I wanted to be sure that I was early to the meeting to meet her. I ended up leaving John, my mom, and Aunt Barb home with the kids so I could be sure to be there. Being in sacrament meeting by myself was the best present I could have gotten! I loved being able to focus on the talk and not be entertaining kids the whole time. :) Bishop Miller gave a great talk and Sarah sang The Wexford Carol beautifully!

Unfortunately, the kids didn't nap so the rest of the afternoon and evening were a little challenging. We went over to John's parents' house and opened presents and ate a delicious meal. I One of our favorite traditions is the dollar gifts. We each come up with a creative gift to give to everyone but it can only cost a dollar. It's always so fun to see what everyone thinks up! This year some of the highlights were little toy guns that shoot foam discs (Mark and Chelsea) and dollar bills folded into origami frogs (Sam). We gave everyone little kitchen egg timers in the shape of tomatoes and taught everyone the Pomodoro Technique that John uses at work to increase his productivity.